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SPEECH 

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OF /^ 

y 

WILLIAM COST JOHNSON, 

OF MARYLAND, 

RESOLUTIONS WHICH HE HAD OFFERED 

PROPOSING TO APPKOPRIATE 

PUBLIC LAND FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES, 



.3t 



THE STATES AND TERRITORIES. 



DELIVERED IN THE 



HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, DURING THE MORNING HOUR, 



February, 1838. 



WASHINGTON: 

PRINTED BY GALES AND SEATON. 

1838. 



J 



SPEECH. 



Mr. Speaker : It will be recollected by the House, that, on the 
11th of December, an able member from Alabama, [Judge Lawler,] 
proposed the following resolution : 

^^ Resolved, That it is expedient to reduce, according to some equitable scale of gradua- 
tion, the price of such portions of the public lands as will not sell within a reasonable length 
of time at one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre ; and that the lands which cannot be 
sold at such reduced prices, after being so offered for the term of — years, should be relin- 
quished to the States, severally, in which they are situated." 

On the 22d of December, I submitted the following resolution, to 
be printed, stating at the time that I should move it either as a sub- 
stitute or as an amendment to the resolution offered by the gentleman 
from Alabama, when his resolution should come up for considera- 
tion, viz : 

" Resolved, That a committee of one from each State be appointed by the Chair, to in- 
quire into the propriety of reporting a bill to appropriate, for the purposes of free schools, 
academies, and the purposes of education, an increased portion of the public lands, for the 
benefit of all the States and Territories." 

On motion of a member from Virginia, [General Mercer,] a few 
daj'S ago, tbe resolution of the gentleman from Alabama was referred 
to the Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union ; and the 
resolution which I have had the honor of offering, takes precedence 
in the House. 

From this circumstance, the whole order of the debate became 
changed. 

I had flattered myself that, before I should trouble the House with 
any remarks, I would have profited by the arguments of the able 
member who submitted the first resolution,* and of those members of 



* After my speech was delivered, Mr. Lawler obtained the floor in support of his reso- 
lution, and in answer to those offered by myself and my remarks upon them. He occupied 
a portion of the morning hour, and the following day moved that the resolutions which I 
offered should take the same direction which his had ; and, therefore, moved their reference 
to the Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, so that both propositions could 
be discussed fully at the same time, and without such frequent interruptions, when he would 
complete his remarks ; which motion, by general consent, prevailed. 

I deem it due, under the circumstances and to my own feeUngs, to offer my humble 
tribute of respect to the memory of one who was intercepted by death in the midst of his 
public career, and before he had concluded his speech, which promised to endear him to 
•liis State. My seat adjoined his, and I knew him well. I esteemed him as pure in public 
as he was amiable and kind in private life. Intelligent without ostentation ; eminently 
useful without vanity ; purely honest for the love of virtue ; and feeling no other incentive 
to ambition but that which characterizes an honest man ; devoting his best talents and judg- 
ment for the interest of his constituents and his country, and to leave, as he did,, an unim- 
peachable reputation to his family and his country. — Note by Mr. Johnson. 



this House who advocate a reduction of the price of the public landsy, 
and a surrender of (hem to the States in which they lie; but, in- 
stead of coming in at the eleventh hour in support of what I intended 
to offer as a substitute, I am unexpectedly forced to lead in this dis- 
cussion. 

I shall not make my remarks more fatiguing, by a trespass upon 
the time of the House, with a long apology for offering them ; but, in 
order to present the proposition which I have made in more definite 
terms, I must request the Clerk to read the following resolutions, 
which I beg leave to offer as a modification of the resolution now 
under consideration : 

Resolved, That each of the United States has an equal right to participate in the benefits 
of the pubhc lands, the common property of the nation. 

Resolved, That each of the States in whose favor Congress has not made appropriations 
of land for the purposes of education is entitled to such appropriations as wiU correspond, 
m a just proportion, with those heretofore made in favor of other States. 

Resolved, That the Committee of report a bill making an increased appropriation 

of the public lands, the property of the United States, yet unappropriated, to all the States 
and Territories of the Union, for the purposes of free schools, academies, and the promo- 
tion and diffusion of education in every part of the United States. 

It is my purpose to be as brief as I may, in the examination of the 
subjects embraced in the resolutions; and their importance must 
plead my excuse if I should fatigue the attention of the House. 
They are of great and important interest; and, in my apprehension, 
no propositions could be submitted to the consideration of Congress 
which would have higher claims to urge them upon the earnest at- 
tention of every member in this hall. Not only are the general 
interests of every State deeply concerned, but I maintain that the 
individual interest of every citizen in the Union is most obviously 
involved. Then, as a question of either individual concernment 
or as a subject of national policy, the distribution of the public lands, 
as proposed by the resolutions, addresses itself to the calm and dis- 
passionate deliberation of all. 

Not being allowed the benefit of the oral arguments which may 
be offered in support of the proposition to reduce the price of the 
public lands, I have devoted as much time as I could control, in the 
multifarious labors I have had to perform, in examining the printed re- 
ports which have been made at various times by the Committees on 
the Public Lands. The committee of the present Congress have 
already made a short report on the subject, which comprises the 
views of former committees; and, in some respects, the precise 
phraseology and arguments. 

I will first examine the report made on this subject by the com- 
mittee of the 23d Congress, as it is more comprehensive and elabo- 
rate, and was prepared by the chairman, who has since filled the 
most distinguished places within the gift of his State, [Mr. Clay, 
of Alabama.] 

The report states : 

" That the committee have felt it their duty to look into the origin of the claim of the 
United States to the public domain, the better to comprehend the motives and inducements 



to the various cessions which were made by the States having claims to Western lands, 
and the obligations incurred by the General Government under those compacts. It is 
from this source that the title of the United States to much the larger portion of the pubUc 
lands' is derived." 

The report then alludes (o the manner in which the General Gov- 
ernment has acquired its claim to the Western domain, and finally 
comes to the significant conclusion that the Western States would 
«0M), perhaps, " be reluctant to raise the question " of the Govern- 
ment's right to the Western lands. 

I should, I am sure, exhaust the patience of the House, and my 
own strength, were I to give a particular history of the claims of the 
United States to the Western lands, and the various antecedent con- 
troversies between the colonies and different European nations, 
relative to territorial jurisdiction and right of soil. In taking a brief 
notice of the past, my object will be to present some substantial 
principles upon which this subject rests, and to explain, in some de- 
gree, the reasons for the deep interest which Maryland, as well as 
other of the old States, have always taken in the honorable and fair 
adjustment of every controversy relating to the Western lands. It 
is fresh in the recollection of the historical reader, that at one time 
the entire country north of the Gulf of Mexico, to the present north- 
ern boundary of the United States, was called Virginia ; and that 
Queen Elizabeth gave Sir Walter Raleigh a patent, almost without 
a name or limit. 

The patents granted afterwards to the London Company were 
scarcely more deiinite. By that granted in 1609, South Virginia 
comprised all the country, including Pennsylvania, Maryland, North 
and South Carolina, from the Atlantic ocean to the South sea. 
Embryo kingdoms were given away in a world unexplored and but 
little known. The extent of the grants was unknown, for the mag- 
nitude of this continent was not comprehended at that time in Eu- 
rope. At the date of those grants, the South sea was thought to 
approach near the Atlantic ; and no one imagined that, in this lati- 
tude, it was some three or four thousand miles distant. Sir Francis 
Drake had seen the Pacific and Atlantic oceans from the same point 
on the Isthmus of Darien, and the proximity of the two seas was 
supposed to be the same along the Northern coast. The history of 
Virginia, by Stith, will show " that, in 1608, a company was organ- 
ized in England, and built a barge that could be taken to pieces, 
with which the company were directed, under the command of Cap- 
tain Newport, to go up the James River, with a view to discover the 
country of the Monakins ; and from thence they were to proceed, 
carrying their barge, beyond the falls, to convey them to the South 
sea.''"' 

The charter of Virginia was repeatedly forfeited. Maryland was 
carved out of its limits, as was North Carolina. Indeed, from Maine 
to Florida, the w^iole seacoast was (if I may be allowed the figure 
used by Mr. Clay, before the Virginia Legislature, in speaking of 
the Kentucky land claims) shingled over with charters to various 



individuals and companies, from different nations of Europe, claiming 
title to the land, by either the right of discovery, of possession, or of 
conquest. 

Virginia, by the forfeiture of her charter, v/as made a royal Govern- 
ment, and, consequently, the waste lands were claimed by the Crown. 

By the treaty of 17G3, between England and France, the Missis- 
sippi was established as the boundary between British America and 
Louisiana. This brought the line of Virginia very much short of 
the Pacific ocean. 

The Western lands were claimed by the British Crown, and 
ceded to it by the treaty of Paris. Virginia now ceased to claim the 
territory " north of the lakes." 

In fine, thirteen colonies had been carved out ot Virginia, at the 
period of the Revolution, and England had relinquished to France 
all her claims to the lands west of the Mississippi river. At that 
period, the waste and unappropriated lands were regarded as Crown 
lands; and, during the war, the large States, and especially New York 
and Virginia, claimed nearly all of the Western and unappropriated 
lands, because they were alleged to be comprised within their original 
charter limits. 

The colonies made common cause in the war of independence, 
and, from the very commencement of the revolutionary struggle, see- 
ing its necessity as well as policy, were desirous of making a confed- 
erated Government. The anxiety of the large States to have their 
claims recognised to all of the Western domain at once awakened 
the small States to the true state of the question of right and justice in 
this enlarged pretension. The small States were all willing to make 
common cause against the common enemy, and regarded it but reason- 
able and just, and as politic as just, that what was rescued from the 
common enemy should be the common property of all. 

Maryland, ever alive to this subject, took a leading and active in- 
terest in it. The experience of the past made her sagacious as to 
the future. She had found, that although her charter had been the 
most liberal and her limits better defined than those of the other 
colonies, still, by the adroit management of William Penn, she had 
lost much of her northern territory, whilst Virginia was urging claim 
to a portion of her southern territory, east of the Chesapeake bay, 
as well as to a large portion of her western and southwestern ter- 
ritory. This latter boundary is still in dispute, and ought yet to be 
referred to the Supreme Court of the United States for its final 
decision. 

The large States, and especially Virginia, persisting in their pre- 
tensions, induced Maryland to urge the strongest arguments to their 
justice ; nor was she willing to join the Confederacy until those ar- 
guments were listened to and their truth admitted. 

In 1776 the convention which framed the constitution of Maryland, 
expressed its sentiments unequivocally on this subject, in the fol- 
lowing resolution : 



" Resolved, unanimously, That it is the opinion of this convention that the very exten- 
sive claim of the State of Virginia to the back lands hath no foundation in justice, and 
that if the same or any like claim is admitted, the freedom of the small States and the 
liberties of America may be thereby greatly endangered : this convention being firmly per- 
suaded that, if the dominion over those lands should be established by the blood and treas- 
ure of the United States, such lands ought to be considered as a common stock, to be par- 
celled out at proper times into convenient, free, and independent Governments." 

As a matter of justice, the ground Maryland took was right, and 
calculated to promote it ; and as a measure of political wisdom, it 
was sagacious. She foresaw that to give those large States all they 
desired would be worse than political folly — it would be political 
suicide ; to confederate with them would be but placing herself be- 
tween the upper and the nether millstone. At the adoption of the 
present constitution she stood equal in political power with New 
York. Each, under the constitution, were allowed six representa- 
tives in Congress. How have things changed ! By the recent ap- 
portionment bill, Maryland has eight and New York forty ; and, afr 
the same ratio, in forty years Maryland will have about four and 
New York sixty — all consolidated and united. I hope, however, 
before that period arrives, as it will be for the interest of New York as 
well as of the other States, that she will divide into two States. 
Such is the contrast now. How would it have been had not Mary- 
land urged the surrender of the Western lands claimed by New York 
and Virginia ? The small States would long since have been over- 
shadowed in political influence, and their impoverished soil been 
abandoned. 

Althoudi all the States had siofned the articles of confederation in- 
1779 save Maryland, she still persisted in declining, and, in a most 
masterly and irresistible argument, instructed her delegates in Con- 
gress to refuse assent until the States should relinquish their unjust 
pretensions. In their instructions, the General Assembly of Mary- 
land say to their delegates that — 

"Having conferred upon you a trust of the highest nature, it is evident we place grea 
confidence in your integrity, abilities, and zeal to promote the general welfare of the United 
States, and the particular interest of this State, where the latter is not incompatible with 
the former; but to add greater weight to your proceedings in Congress, and take away all 
suspicions that the opinions you there deliver and the votes you give may be the mere 
opinions of individuals, and not resulting from your knowledge of the sense and deliberate 
judgment of the State you represent, we think it our duty to instruct as followeth on the 
subject of the confederation ; a subject in which, unfortunately, a supposed difterence of 
interest has produced an almost equal division of sentiment among the several States com 
prising the Union. We say a supposed ditference of interests ; for, if local attachments and 
prejudices, and the avarice and ambition of individuals, would give way to the dictates of a 
sound policy, founded on the principles of justice, (and no other policy but what is founded 
on those immutable principles deserves to be called sound, ) we flatter ourselves this apparent 
diversity of interests would soon vanish, and all the States would confederate on terms mu- 
tually advantageous to all ; for they would then perceive that no other confederation than 
one so formed can be lasting. Although the pressure of immediate calamities, the dread of 
their continuance, from the appearance of disunion, and some other peculiar circumstances,, 
may have induced some States to accede to the present confederation, contrary to their owii 
interests and judgments, it requires no great share of foresight to predict that, when those 
causes cease to operate, the States which have thus acceded to the confederation will con- 
sider it as no longer binding, and will eagerly embrace the first occasion of asserting theii* 
just rights and securing their independence. Is it possible that those States who are am- 
bitiously grasping at territories to which, m our judgment, they have not the least shadow 



of exclusive right, will use with greater moderation the increase of wealth and power de- 
rived from those territories, when acquired, than what they have displayed in their en- 
deavors to acquire them 1 We tliink not. We are convinced the same spirit which hath 
prompted them to insist on a claim so extravagant, so repugnant to every principle of justice, 
so incompatible with the general welfare of all the States, will urge them on to add oppres- 
sion to injustice. If they should not be incited by a superiority of wealth and strength to 
oppress, by open force, their less wealthy and less powerful neighbors, yet depopulation, 
and, consequently, the impoverishment of those States, will necessarily follow, which, by 
an unfair construction of the confederation, may be stripped of a common interest and the 
common benefits desirable from the Western country. Suppose, for instance, Virginia in- 
disputably possessed of the extensive and fertile country to which she has set up claim, 
what would be the probable consequence to Maryland of such an undisturbed and undis- 
puted possession 1 They cannot escape the least discerning. 

"Virginia, by selling on the most moderate terms a small proportion of the lands in 
question, would draw into her treasiuy vast sums of money ; and, in proportion to the 
sums arising from such sales, would be enabled to lessen her taxes. Lands comparatively 
cheap, and taxes comparatively low, with the land's and taxes of an adjacent State, would 
quickly drain the State thus disadvantageously circumstanced of its most useful inhabitants ; 
its wealth and its consequence in the scale of the confederated States would sink, of course. ■ 
A claim so injurious to more than one half, if not to the whole of the United States, ought 
to be supported by the clearest evidence of the right ; yet what evidence of that right has 
been produced ] What arguments alleged in support either of the evidence or the right ? 
None that we have heard of, deserving a serious refutation. We are convinced policy 
and justice require that a country unsettled at the commencement of this war, claimed by 
the British Croivn, and ceded to it by the treaty of Paris, if wrested from the common 
enemy by the blood and treasure of the thirteen States, should be considered as a common 
property, subject to be parcelled out by Congress into free, convenient, and independent 
Governments, in such manner, and at such times, as the wisdom of that assembly shall 
hereafter direct. 

"Thus convinced, we should betray the trust reposed in us by our constituents, were 
we to authorize you to ratify on their behalf the confederation, unless it be further ex- 
plained. We have coolly and dispassionately considered the subject ; we have weighed 
probable inconveniences and hardships against the sacrifice of just and essential rights; and 
do instruct you not to agree to the confederation unless an article or articles be added thereto 
in conformity with our declaration. Should we succeed in obtaining such article or arti- 
cles, then you are hereby fully empowered to accede to the confederacy. " 

Though Maryland refused to sign the confederacy, she never for 
a moment abated her zeal and energy in opposing the enemy, and in 
giving protection and aid to the adjoining States, indeed, in the 
darkest hour of the Revolution, her zeal and patriotism stood pre-- 
eminent. For, after General Washington had been defeated on Long 
Island, and compelled to evacuate New York and Philadelphia, and 
to retreat into New Jersey with the whole amount of his force, 
consisting of but three thousand men, a majority of that army were 
Marylanders ; and Maryland, as if to give a higher and more indu- 
bitable earnest of her fidelity to the cause of independence, and of 
her confidence in the wisdom and patriotism of the commander-in- 
chief in this disastrous epoch of the w^ar, elected at that very period, 
( 1776,) for her first republican Governor, an individual who was at the 
very moment when he received his appointment, in General Wash- 
ington's camp, at the head of seventeen hundred men whom he had 
marched from the western part of Maryland. And the individual 
who received this appointment to the chief executive station of 
Maryland, was the same who had, in the Congress of 1775, nominated 
General Washinglon to the command of the continental army. 

If in error as to this latter fact, the distinguished member from 



9 . * 

Massachusetts may be able, and if so, 1 beg him, to correct me. But 
I do not perceive him in his seat. 

I stand not here to eulogize Maryland. The history of the Revo- 
lution sufficiently tells her praise ; the tribute of approbation has 
been amply accorded to her, by poet, by orator, and by historian, 
but by none has her conduct been more eloquently spoken of than by 
the distinguished member from Massachusetts, [Mr. Adams,] when, 
in his splendid eulogy upon the life and character of Lafayette, he 
thrillingly alluded to the zeal and patriotism of the ladies and mer- 
chants of Baltimore, in this the darkest hours of the struggle for in- 
dependence. What I have said has been merely to show that, whilst 
the enemy overran and desolated other States, Maryland not only- 
defended her own territory, but liberally gave her treasure and sent 
her troops to protect the remotest portions of her sister States. 

She refused to sign the articles of confederation, unless they should 
contain some provision for settling the question as to the Western 
domain. She resisted the claims of particular States, as an extrav- 
agant pretence of right, inconsistent with reason and repugnant to jus- 
tice ; she contended that what was rescued from the common enemy, 
by the common effort, ought, of right, to be a common property, to 
enure forever for the common benefit of all the States. The posi- 
tion which Maryland thus took was approved by several of the 
States, and most of them contended, on similar grounds, for a partici- 
pation in the public lands. 

On the 1st of February, 1719, Delaware signed the articles; but 
her act of accession was accompanied with the following resolutions : 

"Resolved, That this State think it necessary, for the peace and safety of the State, to 
be included in the Union ; that a moderate extent of limits should be assigned for such of 
those States as claim to the Mississippi or South sea ; and that the United States in Con- 
gress assembled should and ought to have power of fixing their Western limits. 

" Resolved, also, That this State consider themselves justly entitled to a right, in common 
■with the members of the Union, to that extensive tract of country which lies to the west- 
ward of the frontier of the United States, the property of which was not vested in, or grant- 
ed to, individuals at the commencement of the present war ; that the same hath been or 
may be gained from the King of Great Britain, or the native Indians, by the blood and 
treasure of all, and ought therefore to be a common estate, to be granted out on terms ben- 
eficial to the United States." 

New York led the way to effect the compromise. In February, 
1780, the Legislature of that State passed an act "to facilitate the 
completion of the articles of confederation and perpetual union 
among the United States of America." This act declared that the 
territory which she ceded " should be and enure for the use and 
benefit of such of the United States as should become members of the 
federal alliance of the said States^ and for no other use or purpose 
whatsoever.''^ 

Maryland, having succeeded so far as to arouse other States to a 
sense of the importance of the question in relation to the Western 
domain, to prevent the injurious impression that irreconcilable dis- 
sension existed among the States, signed the articles of confedera- 
tion on the 1st of March, 1781, protesting, however, at the same tinie, 
against any inference being drawn that she had, by so doing, relin- 



10 

quished her claim to a participation in the Western lands ; but assign- 
ed, as her reasons, that 

" Whereas it has been said that the common enemy is encouraged, by this State not ac- 
ceding to the confedei-ation, to hope that the Union of the sister States may be dissolved, 
and therefore prosecute the war in expectation of an event so disgraceful to America ; 
and our friends and illustrious ally are impressed with an idea that the common cause 
would be promoted by our formally acceding to the confederation ; this General Assembly, 
conscious that this State hath from the commencement of the war strenuously exerted her- 
self in the common cause, and fully satisfied that, if no formal confederation was to take' 
place, it is the fixed determination of this State to continue her exertions to the utter- 
most, agreeably to the faith pledged in the Union ; from aii earnest desire to conciliate the 
affection of the sister States, to convince the world of our unalterable resolution to support 
the independence of the United States, and the alliance with his Most Christian Majesty, 
and to destroy forever any apprehensions of our friends, or hopes of our enemies, of this 
State being again joined to Great Britain." 

Great Britain, by the treaty of peace in 1783, relinquished "to the 
United States all claim to the Government property and territo- 
rial rights of the same, and every part thereof." 

To the relinquishment of what ^'-property and territorial rights" 
did this treaty allude to, if it was not to the Crown lands, (for all the 
vacant unsold land was claimed as such,) if it was not those lands 
situated within the limits of the charters of Massachusetts, Connecti- 
cut, New York, Virginia, North ('arolina, South Carolina, and 
Georgia ; the charters of all of which extended westwardly to the 
South sea or Pacific ocean ? New York had an indefinite claim to a 
part of the Northwestern Territory. 

Then, under the treaty of peace with Great Britain, wdiich met 
the entire concurrence of the thirteen States, Virginia included, the 
United States became entitled to the Western domain. 

This right in some degree became qualified by the acquiescence of 
the General Government in the subsequent acts of cession of those 
States within whose limits the unappropriated lands were situated. 

Georgia, in 1802, relinquished to the United States her Western 
lands, comprising now the entire States of Mississippi and Alabama, 
excepting the southern portions of the same, which, with East Florida, 
were purchased of Spain by the United Slates in 1819, for five 
millions of dollars. The articles of agreement and cession between 
the United States and Georgia explicitly declare " that all the lands 
ceded by this agreement to the United Statesshall, after satisfying 
the above-mentioned payment of one million two hundred and fifty 
thousand dollars to the State of Georgia, and the grants recognised 
by the preceding conditions, be considered as a common fund^ for the 
use and benefit oj the United States, Georgia included, and shall be 
faithfully disposed of for that purpose, and for no other use or pur- 
pose whatever.'^'' 

The cession on the part of Virginia, which may be considered as 
the most important, from the magnitude of the territory comprehended 
within the grant, after specifying certain conditions, requiring, among 
other things, the United States to reimburse the expenses which 
Virginia had incurred in defending the territory, explicitly states 
that the lands ceded " shall be considered as a common fundj for 



11 ' 

the use and benefit of such of the United States as have become^ or 
shall become^ members of the confederation or federal alliance of the 
said States, Virginia inclusive, according to their usual lespective 
proportions in the general charge and expenditure^ and shall be 
faithfully and bona fide disposed of for that purpose, and fur no 
other use or purpose whatsoever.'''' 

By the treaty of 1803 France ceded Louisiana to the United 
States, for which the United States agreed to pay that nation fifteen 
millions of dollars. Then, viewing the public lands as having been 
acquired by conquest, by purchase, or by cession, there is no avoid- 
ing the conclusion that they are the common property of the United 
States, in ivhich each State has an interest in proportion to its sig- 
nificance in the Union. 

The clear and specific language of the acts of cession dissipates 
every vapor and shadow of doubt on the subject, could any have 
existed, and clearly shows that Congress has no other power, if it is 
true to its trust, as an agent created by the States, with a specified 
and restricted power, than to dispose of those lands to create " a 
common fund,'''' for the benefit of each of the States of the Union, 
" according to their usual respective proportions in the general 
charge and expenditure ;''' and that the public lands can only " be 
faithfully and bona fide disposed of for that purpose, and for no 
other use or purpose whatsoever.'''' 

It must be. apparent to all, that as a common property, designed 
in the articles of cession to be granted for the benefit of all of the 
States, and not for the partial benefit of a part of the States, that 
any mode of distribution or appropriation which is partial in its 
tendency operates an injustice to the rest, in direct violation both of 
the language and intention of the acts of cession. So far as they 
have been or may be appropriated for objects of national defence, 
so far as they have been sold and the proceeds paid into the Treas- 
ury, the Government has acted faithfully ; but so far as they have 
been applied to State and not national purposes, so far as they have 
been granted to particular States, for specific purposes, when they 
might have been granted for the like purposes to all tiie States, the 
Government has acted in direct violation of the very language and 
spirit of the compacts. 

The Government has acted, in its unmeasured liberality towards 
the Western States, with great injustice to the old States ; an injus- 
tice which is doubly severe upon those old States whose limits are 
comparatively small, and whose means of revenue are not very 
great, in giving immense bounties of the public domain, for specific, 
and local, and State purposes. 

The Government has given to the Western States one thirty-sixth 
part of the public lands, for the purposes of education in those 
States and Territories in which the lands are situated. And thus 
has been carved out of the general property of the whole nation, 
which Congress solemnly pledged itself to appropriate only for the 
benefit of all, this vast amount for the local and exclusive benefit of 



12 

^part. Have not the old States an equal — I might say, truly, a 
superior — claim to a like proportionate appropriation of the public 
property for the same puipose ? Is not education equally as impor- 
tant in one region of the nation as it is in another? And is it not as 
expensive in the old as it is in the new States? Can this Govern- 
ment, I will ask, consider itself as acting in honest and just faith as 
long as it omits to make similar appropriations of the public lands to 
the old States, for purposes of education ? The appropriations have 
been made for State, not national, purposes ; they were of a char- 
acter that might have been made to oil the States. Is it in good 
faith to restrict them to a part only ? 

The number of acres which the Government has given to the new 
States east of the Mississippi amounts to 7,909,903. If the same 
policy be pursued with the territory west of the Mississippi, (as it 
ought to be, provided it be extended to the old States also,) the 
number of acres which will be appropriated in that region will be 
6,666,G66 ;* making an aggregate of 14,576,569 acres, which, at 
two dollars per acre, will make the enormous amount of ^29,153,138, 
given exclusively to a particular section of the country, from the 
common property of the nation. 

This calculation is placing the land at the low price of two dollars 
per acre, (much of it has sold for ten dollars, and, intrinsically^ on 
an average, it is worth, I believe, more than five ;) and Seybert has 
shown that, before the reduction of Government price, it averaged 
more than two dollars per acre ; which will make, when the West- 
ern country shall have been settled, land worth, perhaps, seventy 
or eighty millions of dollars of the general property of the nation, 
which Congress will have given for local State benefits. 

In addition to this vast amount of land which has been given to 
the Western States for purposes of education, they have received 
two and a half per cent, on the sales of the public lands, and large 
grants, for purposes of internal improvements. The amount of 
money which the General Government has expended in the pur- 
chase and management of the public lands, including interest there- 
on, is upwards of forty-nine millions of dollars. In 1831 it was 
^48,077,551, including interest. This amount has been chiefly paid 
by the old States, and much of their wealth has been drawn from 
them, while the amount of money which had been paid into the 
Treasury from the sales of the public lands, up to 1831, is but 
$37,272,713; therefore the national Treasury had not, at that time, 
been reimbursed, by including interest, by $10,804,838. And yet 
this Congress is gravely asked — by whom ? not the people, but by a 
few honorable members — to reduce the price of the Western lands! 

Nor should Congress refuse to grant to the old States their fair 
distributive share of the public lands for the purpose of education ; 



* This is predicated upon the calculation that Louisiana contains, according to Mr. 
Seybert's estimate, 200,000,000 acres; but it contains 750,000,000, by Senator Clay's 
-estimate, which would more than double the amount. 



and, if they are true to themselves, they will insist upon the grant. 
Maryland contains 8,960,000 acres ; at the ratio of one thirty-sixth 
part, she would be entitled to 298,665 acres ; which, at two dollars per 
acre, would amount to the sum of ^597,330, as a perpetual fund for 
common schools and academies. United with her present school 
fund, this amount would enable her to diffuse more generally the 
benefits of education throughout the entire State. By the adop- 
tion of such a policy, the like benefits would result to every State 
in the Union. Pennsylvania would be entitled to 995,732 acres, 
and all the rest of the old States to an amount proportionate to th^ir 
limits. But I shall allude to this subject more particularly in another 
part of my remarks. In 1821 the Legislature of Maryland passed 
the following resolutions : 

" Resolved by the General Assembly of Maryland, That each of the United States has 
an equal right to participate in the benefit of the public lands, the common property of the 
Union. 

^^ Resolved, That the States in whose favor Congress have not made appropriations of 
land for the purposes of education are entitled to such appropriations as will correspond, 
in a just proportion, with those heretofore made in favor of the other States." 

Another resolution v^as passed, inviting the attention of the Le- 
gislatures of the several States to the subject, and also their Repre- 
sentatives in Congress. 

These resolutions were accompanied by a report from Mr. Maxcy 
to the Senate of Maryland, which, for clear, irresistible reasoning, 
and enlightened policy, is second to no report that has ever been 
made on the subject. If the report of Mr. Clay (I mean the Amer- 
ican statesman) on the subject of the Western lands should be de- 
cided as more able, it would be for the reason that Plato decided 
that one of Demosthenes's orations was better than the rest, "because 
it was the longest.'''' The most of the States gave favorable re- 
sponses to the resolutions of Maryland, and the subject was brought 
before Congress. Congress delayed action, upon the ground that 
granting lands to the old States might, in some degree, retard the 
payment of the national debt, and derange, in some degree, the 
sinking fund system ; but 1 will, before I conclude, allude more par- 
ticularly to the propositions and reports made in relation to the 
public lands as a fund for education. That debt has been paid off; 
the nation is free from debt ; so that argument cannot be now used. 
And Congress should now pay a debt of gratitude — no, sir, not a 
debt of gratitude, but a debt of justice — to the old States. Justice 
is all that they ask, and it is what they have a right to require. 

I have dwelt much longer upon this branch of the subject than I 
had intended ; and, before I proceed to that part of the report of the 
committee which relates to the reduction of the price of the public 
lands, I will make a remark or two upon that part of the report 
which alludes to the relative power of the Government and the new 
States, in the exercise of the right of eminent domain. 

The report states " that the committee do not propose a discus- 
sion of the question whether, in the language of some of the acts of 
cession referred to, the new States have been admitted into the 



14 

Union with ' the same rights o( sovereignty, freedom, and independ- 
ence, as the other States ;' nor whether there is strict propriety in 
the declaration, to be found in all the acts and resolutions of Con- 
gress for the admission of new States, that they are ' admitted into 
the Union on an equal footing with the original States, in all re- 
spects whatever.'' It is not now, (the committee state,) and we 
hope it never may be, necessary to inquire how far the loant of 
eminent domain, the power to dispose of or tax soil within her lim- 
its, is compatible with the ' sovereignty'' of a State ; nor to show 
that the original States, from the time of their independence, and at 
the date of the several compacts, had that right." 

Then, to come back to the immediate consideration of the report : 
The committee hold that the right of eminent domain, the right to 
dispose of and to tax soil are essential attributes of State sovereign- 
ty. These attributes may exist in a sovereign State ; but to make 
these powers attach to and be possessed by the new States presup- 
poses the fact, that when a State is admitted into the Union, with 
equal political and municipal powers, that it becomes, by that ad- 
mission, a sovereign State. It might be saying too much, Mr. 
Speaker though I think not, to assert that there is not absolute 
sovereignty in either the General Government or in a State Gov- 
ernment. 

This feature and argument of the report are peculiar. It half 
asserts, half yields, the right of a State to tax and dispose of the 
national property within its limits, and dwells upon the word 
" sovereignty" with much stress. The ground is not boldly taken 
in the report, that the power of the Western States over the unap- 
propriated lands is paramount to the authority of the General Gov- 
ernment, but an inference is clear in every mind that an attempt is 
made to inculcate such a doctrine. I know that the bold position 
was asserted, a iesv years ago, by the Chief Magistrate of Illinois, 
(Governor Edwards.) The same viev,s are also urged in one or 
two other reports which have been made to this House ; and I have 
before me resolutions and an address from a public meeting held in 
Indiana, unequivocally asserting it. 

Before distinguished members on this floor commit themselves in 
favor of such doctrines, I would warn them to look at the past. 
Before they use their powerful names in urging their States to take 
such rash grounds, I would admonish them to reflect upon the results 
of all the controversies which have existed between State decisions, 
both legislative and judicial, and those of the National Legis- 
lature and Judiciary ; to examine well the constitution, and the 
powers delegated to Congress and the Supreme Court under that 
instrument. 

The term " Slate sovereignty'''' is used in almost every document 
and public address, as if it were conceded on all sides that each of 
the States of this Union really possessed unqualified, absolute, 
national authority and privileges. If I were to attempt to explain 
the philosophy of the error (if the terms are admissible) which con- 



15 

trols the course of so many gentlemen, in both State and national 
councils, in their interpretation of the constitution, the powers of 
the General Government and the States, I would trace it to their 
superficial examination of the subject, to their adopting the opinions 
of prominent men as their guides, without examining the date of 
their opinions, and the attendant circumstances ivhich may have 
elicited them. Such opinions are often found to be contradictory in 
themselves, yet easily reconcileable with the times and incidents 
which may have given rise to them. Another cause of error is the 
omission, on the part of too many public men of the present day, to 
draw a distinction between the limited powers given to the old 
Confederacy and the great mass of powers reserved at that time by 
the States — the increased powers given by the present constitution 
to the General Government, and the more limited powers reserved 
under that instrument by the States. They too frequently use the 
arguments of distinguished gentlemen who were opposed to the 
adoption of the constitution, as the true rule of interpretation after 
its adoption. -They use the arguments of those who were in favor 
of the old Confederacy, as proof that the States should have all the 
powers possessed under it, and that the General Government should 
be as impotent as the old Confederacy ; not sufiicientjy reflecting 
that, though opposed by great names, the Constitution was adopted, 
and became potential, w'ith all the numerous and very great powers 
ingrafted upon it, and became supreme within the scope of the 
powers delegated. Such gentlemen do injustice to themselves, as 
well as injury to the fame of those great names whom they quote. 

I greatly respect the influence of authority, but I venerate in a 
higher degree the weight of argument and reason. That individual 
who takes as his political creed the acts, sayings, and writings, of any 
one leading politician, from youth to the grave, through every vicissi- 
tude of Government and modification of policy, may spare himself 
much reading and reflection ; but I much question if he will ever be 
able to render himself either eminent or useful. Such men are like 
the mildewed and sickly plants that vegetate beneath the shades of 
the ample oak, bearing neither character nor name. They may 
creep around its rough trunk, and crawl to some weak and decaved 
bough, may be occasionally cheered by some faint sunbeam, but 
they give no strength, and only obstruct the healthful air from the 
noble tree. 

I like to see every public or private man in this nation standing 
erect, like the native forest tree, and proudly supporting himself. It 
is such men who are really the pillars of state. 

Mr. Jeff"erson was opposed to that feature in the constitution, before 
its adoption, which rendered the President eligible for re-election • 
yet, after the instrument was adopted, did Mr. Jefferson refuse to 
serve a second term in the presidency ? All know that he did not. 

In the last powerful speech which Patrick Henry made in the 
Virginia convention, against the adoption of the constitution, he 
said, if the constitution were adopted, " My head, my hand, and my 



heart, shall be free to retrieve the loss of Uherti/, and remove the 
defects of that system in a constitutional way. I wish not to go to 
violence, but will wait with hope that the spirit which predominated 
in the Revolution is not yet gone, nor the cause of those who are 
attached to the Revolution yet lost ; I shall, therefore, patiently wait, 
in expectation of seeing that Government changed^ so as to be com- 
patible with the safety, liberty, and happiness, of the people." 

What did Patrick Henry say after the constitution was adopted? 
When his own beloved Virginia was arraying herself against the 
laws of Congress, Patrick Henry, at the age of sixty-three, quit his 
repose and his retirement, to become a candidate for a seat in the 
State Legislature, in order to oppose the course of his State. In his 
address to the people he said : " If ever you recur to another change, 
you may bid adieu forever to representative Government. You can 
never exchange the present Government but for a monarchy.''^ 

Luther Martin made an address to the Legislature of Maryland, 
stating with unparalleled power and ability why he had in conven- - 
tion opposed the adoption of the constitution, which, in my humble 
judgment, is much the ablest paper ever written against the adoption 
of the constitution ; but he did not hesitate, as all well know who 
have read his many masterly arguments, to give all of the provisions 
in that instrument, after its adoption, a rational and effective con- 
struction. 

Under the old Confederacy Congress was not authorized to adopt 
an efficient system of revenue; it could levy quotas on the States, 
but could not enforce their observance. It was fettered as to com- 
merce ; and, in the language of Chief Justice Jay, " prior to the date 
of the constitution, the people had not any national tribunal to which 
they could jesort for justice ; the distribution of justice was then 
confined to State judicatories, in whose institution and organization 
the people of the other States had no participation, and over whom 
they had not the least control. There was then no general court of 
appellate jurisdiction, by which the errors of State courts, affecting 
either the nation at large or the citizens of any other State, could be 
revised and corrected. Each State was obliged to acquiesce in the 
measure of justice which another State might yield to her or to her 
citizens ; and that, even in cases where State considerations were 
not always favorable to the most exact measure. There was danger 
that from this source animosities would in time result ; and, as the 
transition from animosities to hostilities was frequent in the history 
of independent States, a common tribunal for the termination of 
controversies became desirable, from motives both of justice and of 
policy. 

"Prior also to that period the United States had, by taking a 
place among the nations of the earth, become amenable to the laws 
of nations; and it was their interest, as well as their duty, to provide „ 
that those laws should be respected and obeyed. In their national 
character and capacity the United States were responsible to 
foreign nations for the conduct of each State, relative to the laws of 



17 

nations and the performance of treaties; and there the inexpediency 
of referring all such questions to State courts, and particularly to the 
courts of delinquent States, became apparent. While all the States 
were bound to protect each, and the citizens of each, it was highij 
proper and reasonable that they should be in a capacity not only to 
cause justice to be done to each, and the citizens of each, but also 
to cause justice to be done by each, and the citizens of each ; aud! 
that not by violence and force, but in a stable, sedate, and regular 
course of judicial procedure." 

In more than one hundred instances have the courts of the Unioa 
decided upon the acts and claims of the various States; and of that 
number fifteen were of Maryland — more than from any other State 
in the Union ; and, of all of the old States, Delaware, which was the 
first to adopt the constitution, is, I believe, the only exception ; and m 
every case the decision of the national courts has been sustained. 

Massachusetts pronounced the embargo unconstitutional ; Penn- 
sylvania opposed the excise law ; Connecticut denied that her militia 
should be commanded in time of war by officers appointed by the 
national Executive ; Maryland and Ohio sought to tax the branches 
of the United States Bank ; Kentucky set up her land laws : yet 
each and all were quieted by the decision of the national tribunals, 
Pennsylvania had her forces in the field, yet the national laws and 
authorities prevailed. More recently one of the Southern States 
arrayed herself against the laws of Congress. I allude to these his- 
torical facts in no spirit of unkindness, but as historical facts thai: 
teach a salutary warning. Nor do I wish to range over so expansive a 
debate as arose on Foot's famous land resolutions in the Senate, 
where the whole doctrine of State interposition and State sove- 
reignty w^as discussed for months, with an ability never surpassed: 
by any deliberative assembly. But, as an American, I cannot regret 
that that discussion was had; I do not regret it, because it elevated 
the American name without destroying the American Union, and 
opened a new and brilliant leaf in the volume of American genius. 

It was a conflict, in my apprehension, more sublime than the war- 
ring of contending elements. It was a conflict of mind, where miod 
met and subdued mind. The occurrence to which I allude forme*! 
a new epoch in the history of this nation, and presented a spectacle 
of the highest sublimity. I do not use the word " sublimity" in the 
august sense of bookmen: of old ocean, when the elements fret its 
vast bosom into fearful terror ; of the grand prairie on fire, whicfe 
forces the heavens to reflect its lurid light, and fills the mind with am 
idea of immensity of flame ; of the pale and blue mountain crag, whieh 
lifts its aspiring head to the heavens, as if to defy the terror of the 
lightning and the thunders ; nor of the wild and dashing eataractg 
which precipitates itself from the fearful height above, to the abyss 
below, dashing its angry waters into foam, and hanging its spray and its 
rainbow in the heavens, as a trophy of its awful power and sublimity. 
I have seen all this ; but there is a sublime spectacle which has struck 
me with more peculiar force, and one which reminds me more ®f 
2 



18 

the influence and power of Daniel Webster's great speech on that 
memorable occasion. It is the confluence of the Missouri and the 
Mississippi, or the silent meeting of the Ohio with the Mississippi. 
There is no awful terror there which astonishes reflection, no dreadful 
noise that subdues the senses; but you seethe meeting of mighty 
waters ; you see a vast river swallowing up, without commotion, vast 
rivers ; you see that great mother of waters flowing on in sullen and 
silent grandeur, as il it received no aid, as if it were unconscious 
that there were other streams. You are not amazed at its breadth, 
nor its depth, but you are awed at its quiet, sublime silence and 
power. Your mind is not alarmed or astonished, but forced to reflect. 
It is thrown into a new and endless world of meditation. You be- 
hold a stream which has flown on from the beginning of the world, 
and will roll on through all time, which defies the control of all hu- 
man power, and is the same, unchanged and unchangeable. Such 
was the moral power of the speech to v\ hich I allude — its calm and 
unostentatious power. Its moral sublimity, which bore down all resist- 
ance, and forced its influence through all the channels of human 
thought. The doctrine of State supremacy had spread from town 
to county, from county to county, and from State to State. It rolled 
on like mighty waters, overleaping their banks, from South to North, 
as each aspiring wave strove to overleap its predecessor in the anx- 
ious progress. It was then that the reproach of being a North-man 
was thrown upon Daniel Webster ; he was accused — no matter how 
wrongfully — he was still accused with having been an accessary 
of the Hartford convention, which was charged with having had 
the design of a dissolution of the Union ; in the same breath he 
was called a consolidationist and a federalist, and an opposer of 
the war. Under such a cloud of prejudice he rose in his Senate 
place, and by a mighty efl'ort of mind, such as history furnishes but 
one parallel to, in its influence upon a nation, and that the master 
effort of the great Cicero, he dashed back the angry waters to their 
fountains, to flow on in future in their usual and well-defined cour- 
ses. It was a victory more glorious than any won on the battle- 
field — a victory without carnage. It was the triumph of intellect con- 
trolling intellect, and staying physical hostilities by the m.oral force of 
reason and the sublime eloquence of wisdom. 

The hero chief of the presidency, who had added lustre to the arms 
of his country, and covered his brow with perennial laurels amid the 
savannas and morasses of the South ; who had defeated, on the plains 
of New Oi leans, Wellington's gallant soldiers of the Peninsula, iron- 
willed as he was, was subdued by that speech, and became ultra, as 
all sudden converts do. He sent after that speech his proclamation 
abroad, more ultra national than Webster's speech, and never thought 
more of publishing General Haynes's able speech in letters of gold. 

In the days of Cicero there were one hundred and fifty of the 
speeches of Cato, the censor, extant ; and although he flourished less 
than a century before the former, yet Cicero asks, in his dialogue, 
" what living or lately deceased orator has read them ?" I might 



19 

ask, though it would not be in place, how many of the orators who 
jfigure in the present age will find a reader in the next — who will 
search out and read theirevanescent productions on constitutional con- 
struction and policy of government. By the bill of the eminjnt 
statesman of the West, a salutary compromise united tha whole South 
in its support, and quieted, it could be hoped, all collisions between 
State and national jurisdiction. 

Daniel Webster's speech and Henry Clay's compromise biP sho'dd 
gain each the gratitude of individuals most immediately interested in 
that contest and of the nation. What has been the effect upon in- 
dividuals is not my province to inquire. It is true that Hochefoucault 
has a maxim, that "whenever you do an individual a service beyond 
his power to repay you, he is sure to become your enemy, in order 
to cancel the obligation." I will let others judge of its truth, if it is 
true, and make its application, if it has any. But I (ear i have di- 
gressed somewhat from the subject, and will return to its examina- 
tion. 

The Federal Government has less power than the Houses of Par- 
liament in England. The latter are governed by no fixed, wiitten 
constitution. The common law of usage regjlates^ in some degiee, 
the sphere of their actions ; and the vagueness of their pt-wer, un- 
defined and uncoiitrollable, (for the veto has become obsolete,) is 
asserted, nor will either House define the limits of its power. 

The General Government of the United States, on the other 
hand, has been shorn of, or rather not allowed, absolute and unlim- 
ited power. The constitution is the rule of action — giving to the 
General Government strictly defined and limited powers, and gen- 
eral discretionary powers, on specific subjects, to be exei cised or not, 
in the wisdom of the law-making pov^er. There are, moreover, in- 
hibitory powers mentioned in the constitution, which the Government 
may not exercise ; yet uncontrolled sovereignty would not be absolute 
without the power to exercise them. " No bill of attainder or ex 
post facto law shall be ppssed.'- — Sec. ix. The General Govern- 
ment has not absolute sovereign power granted it under the con- 
stitution ; but that instrument, on the contiary, has circumscribed 
and limited its power, beyond which it cannot operate. In the lan- 
guage of Chief Justice Marshall, " The General Government, 
though limited as to its objects, is supreme with re;pect to those ab- 
jectsy 

The States have re£3ived to them, m the constitution, all the 
powers which they have net expressly granted and delegated to the 
Geneial Government ; consequently, whenever a law may be enacted 
by a State Legislature, which is in derogation of the constitution, 
or which may conflict with that instrument, the Supreme Court is 
the arbitrator, and the law is declared void ; for the constitution of 
the United States is the su,jreme iaw of the land. 

Chief Justice Marshall has said, in the case of McCulloch vs. the 
:^tate of Maryland : 



20 

"If the controlling power of the States be established, if their supremacy as to taxa- 
tion be acknowledged, what is to restrain their exercising this control in any shape they 
may please to give it ! Their sovereignty is not confined to taxation. That is not the 
only mode in which it might be displayed. The question is, in truth, a question of su- 
premacy ; and, if the right of the States to tax the means employed by the General Gov- 
ernment be conceded, the declaration that the constitution and the laws made in pursu- 
ance thereof shall be the supreme law of the land is empty and unmeaning declamation."' 

A sovereign State can have a standing army — may lay imposts, 
duties, and may levy war against a foreign State or Government ; 
and no State is sovereign that cannot exercise these essential attri- 
butes of sovereignty : yet ail the States are expressly inhibited from 
doing so by the constitution. They have yielded up those powers 
to the General Government. Then, a State, to be sovereign, must 
first destroy the constitution, and rebel successfully against it. The 
right of revolution is not a constitutional right, but is an instinctive, 
natural right, overruling all written law. Whilst all admit that doc- 
trine against intolerable oppression, as a dernier resort, none are 
willing, because none think it necessary, to resort to it. Instead of 
the sword to settle domestic differences, the American people ap- 
peal to and use successfully the moral artillery of reason. 

" Sovereignty^^'' like the v»^ord " soul,^'' is used in the Virginia and 
other acts of cession in a relative, comparative, conventional sense. 
With other restricted rights of " sovereignty " of the States is 
that to " dispose of or tax the soil" of the United States within the 
limits of the Western States. There are no derelict lands in the 
Western States. What is not owned by the States, or has not been 
purchased from the United States by individuals, or given away by 
the United States for speciiic purposes, is owned by the United 
States, for which the General Government has given a valuable con- 
sideration. Are the forts in the old States which are owned by the- 
Government taxed for State purposes ? They are not. Are they 
more the property of the Government than the lands for which the 
Government has paid a greater amount of money ? 

The distinction should be borne in mind, for it is obvious, between 
the li^hl o( jurisdiction and the right of soil. The municipal in- 
fluence of a State pervades its entire limits. The right to seize 
upon and appropriate the soil or property of the General Govern- 
ment cannot be exercised by any State in the Union. Then, if the 
Western States desire the land of the United States within their 
limits, and are unwilling to effect their wishes by violating the law 
and the principle of the decalogue, they must possess it by pur- 
chase; and I will not deny their right to purchase, as individuals do, 
the public lands, and on the same conditions. That condition of 
the act of Congress which exempts the land from taxation for five 
years after it has been sold is looked upon as injurious to the in- 
terest of the Western States. Tiiat condition was annexed upon 
the ground that it would benefit the Western States, by holding out 
inducements for the industrious and enterprising to immigrate and 
settle the public lands. Nor do I doubt tliat it has had that effectj, 
in a very great degree. But if any honorable trans- Alleghany 



21 

member thinks otherwise, and should desire to have that condition 
removed, as one of the Representatives from an old State, I am free 
to avow my entire willingness to vote for a bill to eiTeet that object. 
The same year that Virginia passed the act of cession, Congress 
passed a resolution which, among other conditions, after regulating 
the manner in which the NorthwesternTerritories should be admitted 
into the Union as States, has this condition clearly set forth that: 

"Provided that both the temporary and permanent Government be established (in the 
State admitted) on these principles as their basis : 

1. That they shall forever remain a part of this confederacy of the United States. 

2. That they shall be subject to the articles of confederation in all those cases in which 
the original Statfes shall be so subject, and to all the acts and ordinances of the United 
States in Congress assembled, conformably thereto. 

3. That they shall in no case interfere with the prlmarii disposal of the soil by the Uni- 
ted States in Congress assembled, nor with the ordinances and regulations which Congress 
may find necessary for securing the title in such soil to the bona fide purchasers. 

4. That they shall be subject to pay a part of the federal debts contracted, or to be con- 
tracted, to be apportioned on them thetn by Congress, according to the same common rule 
and measure by which apportionments thereof shall be made on the other States. 

5. That 710 tax shall be imposed on lands, the property of the United States. 

6. 1 hat their respective Governments shall be republican. 

7. That the lands of non-resident proprietors shall in no case be taxed higher than 
those of residents within any new State, before the admission thereof to a vote by its dele- 
gates in Congress." 

The necessity for reducing the price of the public lands can only 
be made manifest by showing that the price, as established at present, 
is higher than the real value of the lands, and for that reason the 
sales are comparatively limited, and the settlement of them greatly 
retarded. Has any such proof been offered ? None that I have 
read or heard. But, on the contrary, the history of the settlement 
of the Western lands illustrates the unparalleled liberality of the 
General Government to that region of country ; and the rapid advance 
of the new States to wealth, their rapid increase of population, and 
unprecedented prosperity, are proofs unanswerable that the West- 
ern States have not the shadow of a cause to reproach the Govern- 
ment for want of liberality. 

To the clear understanding of this subject, it is proper to recur to 
the past, and examine the present prices of the Western lands, with 
the relative effects which those prices have had upon the old and 
the new States. 

At the close of the revolutionary war the General Government 
commenced the present land system, and established two dollars as 
the price which should be given per acre for all the public land which 
was not disposed of at public sales, and allowed a liberal time for the 
purchaser to make payment. 

In 1820 the Government thought it advisable to abolish the 
credit system, and to require that the purchase-money should be paid 
in hand at the time of making the purchase ; in consideration of which 
the price was reduced to ^1 25 per acre, and the sections were di- 
vided into smaller allotments ; so that, with fifty dollars, a purchaser 
might be enabled to procure forty acres of good land in perpetuity, 
with a title never to be questioned. 



22 

What, let me ask, has been the operation of this policy ? Has it 
been the aggrandizement of the old States, and the tardy settlement 
of the new States? No voice will utter such a belief; for the very 
reverse is *he fact. 

Has the amount of sales augmented or diminished ? 

By the report of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, 
sent to this House by the Secretary of the Treasury, January 30, 
1838, tables B and A give the amount sold each year. 

B. 

Exhibit of the quantity of land entered under the credit system prior to the 
Ist of Jul I,', 1820, (which includes the lands subsequently relinqdshed and 
reverted tu the United States under the various laws passed for the relief 
of the purchasers of public land,) and the amount contracted to be paid 
by the pu-chasers thereof. 



Year. 


Acres sold. 


Amount contracted to 
be paid by purchasers. 


1787 


72,974.00 


§117,108 


24 


1792 


1,165,440.00 


832,549 


66 


1796 


43,446.61 


100,427 


53 


1801 


398,646.45 


834,887 


11 


1802 


340,009.77 


680,019 


54 


1803 


181,068.43 


3?8,161 


28 


1804 


373,611.54 


772,851 


95 


1805 


619,266.13 


1,236,953 


22 


1806 


473,211.63 


1,001,358 


02 


1807 


359,011.79 


738,273 


29 


1808 


213,472.12 


459,230 


34 


1809 


231,044.98 


550,655 


03 


1810 


235,879.41 


502,382 


13 


1811 


288,930.31 


614,324 


53 


1812 


536,537.40 


1,149,536 


46 


1813 


270,241.43 


621,199 


44 


1814 


864,536.53 


1,784,560 


95 


1815 


1,120,233.64 


2,340,188 


91 


1816 


1,622,830.06 


3,567,273 


88 


1817 


2,159,372.43 


5,022,409 


84 


1818 


2,401,844.60 


7,209,997 42 


1819 


5,475,648.17 


17,681,794 


37 


30th June, 1820 


518,-500.80 


1,465,283 


94 




19,965,758.23 


$49,680,427 


13 



The above shows the quantity of land entered, and the purchase-money thereof, 
from the earliest period, annually, to the 30th of June, 1820, without regard to their 
subsequent reversion to the United States, or their subsequent reUnqui&hment to the 
United States under the several relief lavjs. The netf quantity of land actually sold 
or retained by the purchasers under the credit system is 13,64 8,645.43 acres ; and 
the nett amount paid is $27,905,099 76 ; which amounts are put down in table A as 
the "quantity of land sold," and the "amount paid by purchasers," from the earliest 
period to the 30th June, 1820. 

The lands sold from 1787 to 1796, inclusive, are the lands sold prior to the open- 
ing of the land office, to John Cleves Symmes, the Ohio Company, and to individuals^ 
at pubhc sales held In New York and Pittsburg. 



23 



A. 

Exhibit of the quantity of public land sold, the amount paid by the pur- 
chasers thereof and the payments made into the Treasury on account of 
the sales of public land, from the earliest period of the sales to the SOtk 
September, 1837. 







Quantity of land 


Amount paid by 


Amount paid into 


Year. 




sold — acres. 


purchasers. 


the Treasury. 


In 1795, 1797, 1798 


1800 






$100,783 59 




1801 


. 


- 


168,125 01 




1802 


. 


- 


188,628 02 




1803 


. 


- 


165,975 69 




1804 


. 


. 


487,526 79 




1805 


. 


- 


540,193 80 




1806 


. 


. 


765,245 73 




1807 


. 


. 


466,163 27 




1808 


. 


. 


647,939 06 




1809 


. 


. 


442,252 3S 




1810 


.- 


. 


696,548 82 




1811 


. 


. 


1,040,237 53 




1812 


. 


. 


710,427 78 




1813 


. 


. 


835,655 14 




1814 


. 


. 


1,135,971 09 




1815 


. 


. 


1,287,959 28 




1816 


. 


. 


1,717,985 03 




1817 


. 


- 


1,991,226 06 




1818 


. 


. 


2,606,564 77 




1819 


. 


. 


3,274,422 /8 


To 30th June, 


*1820 


13,648,645.43 


$27,905,099 76 


I fl,635,871 61 


From 1st July, 


1820 


303,404.09 


424,962 26 






1821 


781,213.32 


1,169,224 98 


1,212,966 46 




1822 


801,226.18 


1,023,267 83 


1,803,581 54 




1823 


653,319.52 


850,136 26 


916,523 10 




1824 


749,323.04 


953,799 03 


984,418 15 




1825 


893,461.69 


1,205,068 37 


1,216,090 56 




1826 


848,082.26 


1,128,617 27 


1,393,785 09 




1827 


926,727.76 


1,318,105 36 


1,495,845 26 




1828 


965,600.36 


1,221,357 99 


2,018,308 75 




1829 


1,244,860.01 


1,572,863 54 


1,517,175 13 




1830 


1,929,733.79 


2,433,432 94 


2,329,356 14 




1831 


2,777,856.88 


3,557,023 76 


3,210,815 48 




1832 


2,462,342.16 


3,115,376 09 


2,623,381 03 




1833 


3,856.297.56 


4,972,284 84 


3,967,681 55 




1834 


4,658,218.71 


6,099,981 04 


4,857,600 69 




1835 


12,564,473.85 


15,999,804 11 


14,757,510 75 




1836 


20,074,870.92 


25,167,833 06 


24,641,979 86 


To 30th September, 


1837 


4,885,462.97 


6,127,418 39 


5,644,021 09 




75,025,055.50 


§106,245,656 88 


f94,496,5^-3 81 


Received by the Treasurer 








of the U. States in 1836 


- 


. 


235,200 00 


Ditto, ii 


1 1837 


- 


- 


6,200 00 


Total, 


$94,737,943 81 



* End of credit system. — (See table B.) 

■j- This amount is the aggregate of payments into the Treasury for the year 1820, 
under the cash and credit system. Such aggregate is also exhibited for the subse- 
quent years. 



24 



These facts rebuke into silence every idea that the policy of the 
Government is illiberal, or that the price of the public land is too 
hifj,h ; it cannot be, when the demand for land in the West so rap- 
idly augments. 

What are the facts in relation to the settlement of those lands ? 

Forty-seven years ago the entire population west of the Allegany 
mountains hardly amounted to 100,000 souls. That region of country 
iB now the home of nearly 4,000,000 of people ; whilst the old States 
have increased within that period at a rate of about 15 per cent. 
every ten years, the new States have augmented in population at the 
jate of 33 per cent, in the same period. The new States have in- 
creased with more than double the rapidity of the old States, and 
some of them at more than quadruple the rate of many of the old 
States. 



Increase of the population of the United States for ten years. 



States. 


Per cent, 
increase. 


Square miles. 


Population in 
1830. 


Maine ------ 


33.9 


32,628 


399,437 


New Hampshire - - . . 


10.4 


9,491 


296,328 


Vermont - . . - _ 


19.0 


10,212 


280,657 


Massachusetts - - - - 


16.6 


7,500 


610,408 


Rhode Island - _ _ - - 


17.0 


1,340 


97,199 


Connecticut - - _ - _ 


8.2 


4,764 


297,675 


New York ----- 


39.4 


46,085 


1,918,608 


New Jerse}- - - - - - 


15.6 


8,320 


320,823 


Pennsylvania ----- 


28.4 


44,000 


1,348,233 


Delaware - - _ - - 


5.5 


2,120 


76,748 


Maryland . - _ - _ 


9.7 


13,9.50 


447,040 


Virginia - . - . - 


13.7 


64,000 


1,211,405 


North Carolina - - - - - 


15.6 


48,000 


737,987 


South CaroUna ----- 


15.7 


28,000 


581,185 


GfecH-gia . - - _ _ 


51.5 


62,000 


516,823 


Alabama - - - - _ 


141.6 


46,000 


309,527 


Mississippi - _ _ _ _ 


80.1 


45,760 


136,621 


Louisiana _ _ _ - - 


40.7 


48,220 


215,739 


Tennessee _ - _ - _ 


62.7 


40,000 


681,903 


Kentucky - _ . - - 


22.1 


42,000 


687,917 


Ohio ' ----- 


61.2 


39,128 


935,884 


Indiana - - _ _ - 


132.1 


37,000 


343,031 


Illinois - - - - _ 


185.4 


52,000 


157,445 


Missouri . - - _ . 


110.4 


63,000 


140,455 


Michigan - _ - _ _ 


250.1 


40,000 


31,639 


Arkansas - - - _ _ 


113.3 


- 


30,388 


Florida - _ - - _ 


- 


45,000 


34,730 


District of Columbia - . _ . 


20.1 


100 


39,834 



Has it been the mere result of accident that the old States, with 
their superior situations for agriculture, commerce, and manufac- 
tures, which, more than any thing else, will throw a dense popu- 
lation in the cities contiguous to or connected with the ocean, should 



25 \ 

h-e so far outstripped in their advance to wealth and population by 
the new States? Or has it not been an effect growing out of and 
consequent upon the policy of the Government, in disposing of, at 
so low a piice, the public lands of the United States, and thereby 
inviting, by the strongest inducements, the population of the old 
States to emigrate from them and to settle on the cheap and fertile 
lands in the valley of the Mississippi ? 

The ravages of the revolutionary struggle impaired the agricul- 
tural interest of the old States, and the consequences growing out of 
it exhausted the fertility of the soil in a very great degree. 

To support the armies of the Revolution, and to pay the heavy 
quotas and taxes which were levied upon them, compelled the 
farmers, those few who were not under arms, to adopt that mode of 
cultivation which was cheapest and least laborious, but the most 
ruinous to the soil. They were compelled to pitch crop after crop, 
in rapid succession, in the same fields, to supply the urgent wants of 
the army, and to enable them to pay the enormous taxes assessed 
upon them. The consequence was, that all the fresh lands became 
impoverished, the virgin soil exhausted, and the land almost worth- 
less for culture. 

The farmers had no time to rest their lands from repeated ex- 
haustion, or to supply, by extraneous means of compost and the min- 
erals, the vegetable crops which they annually took from them. 
Peace, which brought independence to our nation and lepose to our 
army, brought neither repose nor rest to the fields of the farmer. A 
national debt of some two hundred millions, and State debts of most 
onerous amounts, were to be paid, and paid chietly by the agricul- 
tural industry of the country. This compelled the farmers to persist 
in that ruinous mode of cultivation which, to supply pressing and 
urgent demands, was impoverishing the whole face of the country. 
Then were opened to market, by the General Government, the rich 
and extensive lands of the Mississippi valley, and at the low price 
of ^2 per acre. Its consequences Avere felt by all the old States, and 
more especially by Maryland and those States whose situations were 
marked with the like peculiarities. Maryland had furnished her 
most abundant share in men and money to defend the Western 
lands, as well as the general liberty of the colonies. The treaty of 
peace had surrendered those lands to the United States, as a common 
property ; yet Congress accepted the acts of cession of Virginia and 
Georgia, paid the troops of the former as a condition of cession, and 
paid the latter several millions of money. Thus have many of the 
old States first fought for those lands, and then purchased them of the 
States and of foreign Governments ; yet some of the old States have 
not only to pay all ihe State debts incurred out of their own State 
coffers, but to pay the troops that defended these very Western 
lands. Maryland is called on every year to pay revolutionary 
claims ; and all this comes chiefly from the agricultural interest of 
the State ; the consequence of which is, that the lands of that State 
are taxed most heavily; indeed, the land taxes in Maryland are 



26 

higher than in any State in the Union. Then, what recompense 
do those devoted States receive for paying those vast amounts, in 
having their soil impoverished and their lands highly taxed ? Does 
the Government adopt a policy which will improve the value of lands 
in the old States, or which will justify the farmer in incurring the 
onerous expense of enriching his greatly exhausted lands ? No, sir ; 
such has not been the policy of the Government. It has been the 
policy of the General Government to offer inducements to the peo- 
ple of the old States to abandon their farms and to let them lie 
waste ; to tell the emigrant that liberty is won by the men and 
money of the old States, and that he can now reap its benefit, whilst 
they have paid the cost. It has been to tell the stranger that we 
will give you benefits which shall not be enjoyed by any patriotic 
citizen of the old States, unless he leave the home of his childhood 
and the State of his nativity. 

The citizens of the old States have found it to their advantage to 
dispose of their lands at any price, rather than incur the labor and 
expense of enriching them, when, with an amount sufficient to 
enrich ten acres of land long in cultivation, they could purchase 
perhaps fifty acres of the rich lands in the West, and lands exempt 
from the burden of taxation for five years. Yes, one increasing tide 
of emigration is setting to the West, leaving the old States, where 
taxes are high, and soil less productive and less cheap; going to the 
W^est, where land is rich, taxes low, and the munificence of the 
General Government carrying education to every village and to 
every cottage. The sagacity of self-interest has induced the rich 
and the poor, the industrious and enterprising, to migrate to that 
country, where homes can be procured for a consideration so small 
that it requires little more than the will to possess them, to be owned 
and occupied, and but moderate industry to make them yield most 
abundantly. The reduced price of the fertile lands of the West has 
had a tendency of reducing the price of landed estates in the old 
States. Many portions of Virginia end Maryland are not as popu- 
lous now as they were thirty years ago. Yes, sir, the picture drawn 
in the late Virginia convention, by a distinguished member of this 
House, [General Mercer,] was not a mere fancy sketch of the 
present impoverished and desolate condition of the lower counties of 
his native State, when compared with their former wealth and popu- 
lation. Those fields, where once waved the golden harvest, are 
now a barren waste; those mansions, which were once the abode of 
chivalry, refinement, and generous hospitality, are now '-as desolate 
as the dwelling of Moina;" and the wild beasts have returned from 
the mountains to find a shelter amid the thickets of their ancient 
hiding-places. Should any member on this floor doubt these things, 
one hour's ride from this city, into either Maryland or Virginia, will 
give him proof's of the melancholy reality. Yes, sir ; you may look 
from the balustrades of this edifice, or ascend its lofty dome, and, 
ranging your view into the Maryland or Virginia side of the Poto- 
mac, see lands thus contiguous to the capital of the nation which carx 



27 X 

be bought for three or four dollars per acre ; some have been sold 
within the last year for less than three dollars per acre. The sparse 
inhabitants, though patient and laborious, find that, even with the most 
rigid economy and frugality, wealth does not augment, and that their 
most untiring industry must be applied, 

" To force a reluctant soil to yield 
Them bread." 

These lands were originally productive, but have become ex- 
hausted, from ihe causes which I have already assigned. To enrich 
them would require an expense of fifteen or twenty dollars per acre ; 
an expense which but few will encounter (and but few are able) as 
long as they can purchase, at the low rate of ^1 25 per acre, rich and 
fresh lands on the navigable rivers of the West, which will yield 
more abundantly. 

I will invite the attention of the committee to a passage of the re- 
port, which, I think, and I believe it can be shown, assumes a false 
position : 

"The Government of the United States," says the report, "is probably the only vender, 
either of land or any other property, that holds the most inferior quality of any article at 
the same price with the best. If an individual were to maintain that all domestic animals 
of a given species were of the same value, how inconsistent would he appear] If a mer- 
chant were to refuse to sell kersey at any lower price than he could obtain the superjine 
broadcloth, his conduct would certainly be deemed utterly absurd. Yet there is not greater 
absurdity in either of these propositions than there is in maintaining that loMd of evert/ 
quality is worth, or should command, the same price." 

" But give me a foothold," said one of old, " and I will move the 
world." Grant the gentleman's premises, and I will admit that there 
is some plausibility in his conclusion ; but 1 utterly deny that it is a 
fact that the " Government holds the most inferior quality of the pub- 
lic lands at the same price with the best." 

This leads to a more particular inquiry into the mode adopted by 
Congress for the sale of the public lands. Prior to 1820, those lands 
which were not sold at auction at above ^2 per acre could be entered 
by purchasers for that sum, to be paid in four equal annual payments ; 
the first within forty days, and the three ot'ier payments within two, 
three, and four years, after date of purchase. No interest was to be 
charged if punctually paid, and a discount of eight per cent, was 
made by the Government if the purchaser paid cash ; so that, by 
prompt payment, the price would be reduced to ^1 64 per acre, 
and the purchaser was allowed to purchase any amount above a 
quarter of a section of one hundred and sixty acres. The present 
law permits sales of an eighth of a section, and establishes a mini- 
mum price of $1 25, which is required to be paid in hand. But 
before any land is liable to private entry at the price of $1 25 per 
acre, it must have been first offered at public sale. 

The lands are now first offered at public vendue, exposed to fair 
competition, and not unfrequently, instead of ^1 25 per acre, they 
bring five and ten times that amount. By the recent sales of the lands 
on Red river, within the last three years, they have sold as high as 
from twelve to thirteen dollars per acre ; and yet we are, with these 



28 

tindeniable facts before us, told that the Government asks as much 
for her worst lands as she does for her best. 

By the report of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, 
which isappended to the report of the Committee on the Public Lands 
of the twenty-third Congress, it will appear that, in thiee years, be- 
ginning with 1826, there were sold 413,607 acres of public land in Al- 
abama, for 8576,087 ; making the land sold average ^ 1 39.3 per acre, 
which is considerably more than the Government rate, as fixed at the 
mininum price ; and yet, with that evidence appended to the report, 
the committee gravely asserts that the Government holds all of its lands 
at the same price. The honorable chairman of the committee complains 
that the price of the public land is too high ; and, as proof, he exhibits 
the fact that some hundred millions of acres have been surveyed, and 
remain unsold. This may be true ; but it does not establish a clear in- 
ference that the price is too extravagant, because, in the space of some 
twenty or thirty years, the whole Western forest has not been made 
to yield to cultivation, and to swarm more redundant with popula- 
tion. If the ratio of the increase of population, as contrasted with 
the old States, were to be regarded as a criterion of the relative pros- 
perity of the several regions of the Union, I think that I have al- 
ready shown that the new States have no cause of complaint. Most 
clearly it would leave an inquisitive reader a better ground to judge 
of the reasonableness of the committee's complaint of a want of ready 
sale of the Western lands, if it had favored us with an estimate of 
the quantity of the public lands which have been annually sold in the 
West, rather than the aggregate amount of acres which is still in 
market. And if the committee had shown that the sales were an- 
nually diminishing in quantity, then, possibly, some cause of com- 
plaint might exist against the policy of the Government. But when 
the glaring fact is known to all, who are anxious to know it, that the 
sales are annually increasing beyond the most credulous expectation, 
I think that those complain without cause or reason who charge the 
(government with a want of liberality to the new States. The pro- 
gressive augmentation of the sales of the public lands has been rapid 
to an extent which awakens surprise in the mind of every reflecting 
individual. All the public lands sold prior to 1787 were but 73,947 
acres. The Government has sold within the last year more than 
2,000,000 of acres. Then, when it is made manifest that the rapid 
increase of the sales of the public lands has been beyond all expect- 
ation, and only surpassed by the more rapid augmentation of the 
population in those new States, it must be undeniable that the lib- 
erality of the Government has been as munificent to the new States, 
as their complaint of the measures and policy of the Government to- 
wards them is ungenerous and unjust. 

Still we are told that the price of the public lands is too high. If 
we were to apply the trite maxim of the factor, that 

"The worth of a thing 
Is what it will bring," 

(which I will readily grant is a good maxim, when applied to the 



29 » 

productions of the workshops, when the supply bears a just propor- 
tion to the demand, but which is not so strictly applicable to land, 
when' the supply is more than commensurate with the demand,) 
its price should be controlled in a great degree by the value of the 
productions which it may yield. 

1 have shown that the increase of sales and the increasing demand 
for lands, prove that the land is regarded as fully worth the price 
which the Government has established. I am fully convinced that 
the maxims of political economy are less to be consulted in the pres- 
ent investigation, because they are too frequently the mere refine- 
ments of theory, which will not always accord with practical lesults, 
than the illustrations from actual experience, which easily lead to just 
and reasonable conclusions. 

To investigate the true standard by which the price of lands should 
be valued would require details of calculation which I have not 
had time to make, and a familiarity with the practical science of na- 
tional economy which I do not pretend to thoroughly possess. A few 
general observations may be indulged. 

The nominal value of land is controlled by the price which it 
would bring in market or at sale. This nominal value is controlled 
in a great degree by the quantity thrown into market^ as well as by 
the quality of the soil. Were all the soil owned by the United 
States from the Alleghany mountains or from the Mississippi river 
to the Pacific ocean thrown into market within the coming year, i 
ara disposed to believe that they would not bring six cents per acre, 
because the supply ivoiild be greater than the demand. The absence 
of capital and population would restrict the demand, whilst the 
intrinsic value of those lands would be many dollars per acre. 

Where is the capital to be found to purchase quickly all the public 
domain ? All the gold and silver coin in this country will amount 
to some sixty millions. Commerce and the multifarious wants of 
life will not allow it to be abstracted from those urgent purposes, to 
be invested in land. Were you to melt up all the gold and silver 
in the nation, it would not make one hundred millions of dollars. 
The pockets of the people have not yet been filled with the precious 
metals, and we .are told that they would be ruined by the credit 
system. The farmers now can hardly pay their debts, and are but 
poorly able to make extensive purchases of land. The Magician's 
wand has not yet been wielded over their fallov^' fields, nor touched 
their stones into gold. And if all the public lands were at once sold 
to hungry and devouring speculators, where is the labor in this na- 
tion to cultivate them ? If every merchant and mechanic were to 
become an agriculturist, three fourths of the public lands would re- 
main uncultivated for a quarter of a century to come. 

The intrinsic value of land is governed by the quantity and value 
of the commodities which it may yield. If an acre of ground costs 
one hundred dollars, and money is worth, for the use of it, six per 
cent, per annum, and the land will yield productions, after defraying 
all the attendant expenses of improvement and cultivation, that will 



30 

yield a profit, in value, upon the capital invested and all the contin- 
gent expenses of every kind, of six per cent., no one will deny that 
the intrinsic value of the land is equal to its original cost. The, 
yield above that amount is clear profit to the cultivator. Or, to 
illustrate from fact instead of theory : lands now on the Savannah 
river, the choicest rich rice lands, will command three hundred dol- 
lars per acre ; and they are really cheaper, in point of productive- 
ness and profit, at that price, than the more steril lands of South 
Carolina would be at ten dollars per acre ; because on those rich 
lands the expense of cultivation is not so great, and they yield more 
abundantly, in proportion to the capital invested. They will yield 
from ninety to a hundred bushels of rice per acre, which is worth in 
the caps about one dollar a bushel; and one hand will cultivate 
about five acres. 

Dr. Black has demonstrated in his prize essay, which was pub- 
lished in the American Farmer in 1820, and never read but with 
approbation, that every acre of arable land in New Jersey, which 
now sells at from ten to thirty dollars per acre, is intrinsically worth 
five hundred dollars per acre ; and might be placed in such a state 
of cultivation as to yield, after paying that great amount, and all the 
numerous expenses of cultivation, from six to ten per cent, upon the 
capital employed in the purchase and cultivation. The attested 
history of the present day illustrates the theory of that essay. The 
experiment has been successfully tried in the State adjoining. I 
must request the Clerk to read the following article, in the first 
number of the Delaware Register and Farmers' Magazine, printed 
in February, 1838. It is headed " Improvement of the soil — profit 
oj crops — Italian spring wheat.^^ The article will be interesting to 
every farmer, and to all who feel any interest in their prosperity : 

"In the year 1833, Messrs. Sipple and Pennewell, wishing to secure a landing and 
ship-yard on St. John's creek, in the immediate vicinity of Dover, purchased several acres 
of very poor land, then offered for sale, at the rate of about thirty dollars an acre. After 
setting apart a sufficient area for the ship-j'ard and landing, they had remaining about five 
or six acres of land, which they determined to improve, more by the way of experiment 
than the hope of much profit. They commenced liming and manuring their new purchase, 
and at the same time put a part of it in cultivation. It may now be called good land, but 
by no means as rich as it can be, and soon will be, made, in consequence of the enlight- 
ened mode of improvement adopted and continued by those gentlemen. 

" From the beginning, they more than realized, from the sale of various crops, all the 
expense of tilling and manure ; but have kept no correct account, except as it regards two 
acres and one quarter, measured and laid off for the express purpose of testing the capa- 
bility of the land as a source of profit. From this they have taken, since 1833, a crop of 
oats, and one of red spring wheat. On the 15th day of March, 1837, they sowed on 
these two acres and a quarter four bushels and one gallon of Italian spring wheat, which 
they harvested on the 14th day of July following. They obtained sixty-eight bushels of 
clean wheat, weighing sixty-one pounds to the bushel, wliich they immediately sold at 
three dollars per bushel, for seed, and had left three bushels of inferior quality. From this 
and the corn crop of 1836, from the same lot, they realized the sum of $344! and they 
say the fodder and straw fully compensated them for every expense of tilling. Mr. Sipple 
thinks the wheat was sown too thick, and that one and a half bushels to the acre would 
have been quite sufficient. The Italian spring wheat has a remarkably bright straw, and 
is supposed not to be subject to rust. 

" They are now receiving from the land^ thus improved, an annual clear income equal to 
the interest oijive hundred dollars an acre ! All the land in the neighborhood of Dover, 



31 

and most of that of Kent county, is naturally of as good quality as the lot thus improved, 
and yet we find much of it selUng at iromjive to ten dollars the acre J It is what may be 
called a light loam, in which sand greatly predominates. 

"The above statement of facts is wholly derived from this source, and may he reUed on, 
and is well worthy the serious consideration of all such persons as contemplate seUing at a 
low price such lands, in a country remarkable for its health, beauty, advantages of location, 
^nd proximity to the best markets in the United States." 

It may be asked, why, then, are these lands sold in the old States ? 
I reply, first, because agriculture has not attained that perfection in 
this country which it has in some parts of Asia and Europe, and 
especially in China, where each acre of land is made, by prudent 
cultivation, to support an inhabitant. To enrich lands and to cultivate 
them well requires a great expenditure of money, and still greater of 
labor. At least one fourth of the lands in cultivation in the old States 
would be greatly improved by having at least fifty bushels of lime 
or compost used upon each acre ; and at least another fourth would 
require one hundred bushels, and another fourth one hundred and 
fifty or two hundred bushels. 

It is not unfrequent in Derbyshire, England, to use as much as six 
hundred bushel.'5, and the average quantity used in England and Scot- 
land is about one hundred and fifty bushels per acre. But take an 
average of one hundred bushels to the acre, and each bushel to cost 
ten cents, and estimate the number of acres requiring lime to make 
them productive and profitable at but six millions, the amount of the 
capital would be sixty millions of dollars. And to this should be 
added the expense of the labor to be employed in the process of 
enriching and cultivating the lands, which would be a,t least sixty 
millions more. It would require more than double the amount of 
gold and silver which is now in this nation. If the amount of capital 
and labor required was r9ally available, I have no doubt the profit 
would be abun-iant in the immense increase of production. But the 
farmer is told that if he goes into debt, and ventures to use the credit 
system, he deserves to be a bankrupt, and is forced to gather, as he is 
wont to do, his scanty crops from his impoverished soil. A few who 
have the means may highly cultivate a few acres; but the number of 
those who own large or even moderate farms is small, that can highly 
enrich their lands. Those who labor on the soil do it as a means 
of supplying the primary necessaries of life, and for the accumula- 
tion of wealth. They apply their capital and labor where it is most 
productive and profitable. Their own sagacity and experience con- 
vince them that they would do well by cultivating the lands less 
fertile in the old States : but the quickening principle in self-''.terest 
teaches them that it is more profitable for them to emigrate from a 
State where their profits are but ten or five per cent, and go to the 
new lands, which will yield them from fifteen to one hundred. 
Thus it is that the price of lands is kjpt down in the old States, 
whilst their population crosse.^' the mountains, and the lands in the 
valley of the Mississippi are made tc enhance in value and in pro- 
ductiveness. 

The taste of this age in this nation seems to be wild and impetu- 



32 

ous speculation ; to move forward with a stern pressure in pursuit of 
sudden wealth, to rifle our descendants for presentlucre,and to gamble 
away in politics or speculation the whole public domain — to use the 
present moment, regardless of the wants of the many millions who 
are quickly to take our places in existence, instead of adopting a 
policy that would advazotage the present generation, without doing 
injustice to those which are to follow. We boast of our agriculture, 
and yet have often to import our bread stuffs. We boast of our 
knowledge, and make no provision, with means abundant, to pro- 
vide for the education of the hundreds of thousands who annually 
grow up in ignorance and vice. 

We can judge of the resources of this country by viewing the 
rise and progress of other nations, less advantageously situated, in 
agricultural advancement, and in augmentation of population. I 
will, therefore, read the Ibllowing extract from the able pen of Dr. 
Humphreys, who obtained his information from the reports of par- 
liamentary committees and other authentic documents. He says, 
(writing at the time from England : j 

" It is the opinion of competent judges, that the advances made in the agriculture of Great 
Britain during the last seventy or eighty years are scarcely exceeded by the improvement and 
extension of its manufactures within the same period ; and that to these advances, no other 
old settled country furnishes any parallel. That they have been very rapid, indeed, the fol- 
lowino- figures and comparisons abundantly show. In 1 760 the total growth of all kinds 
of grain in England and Wales was about 120,000,000 of bushels. To this should be 
added, perhaps, 30,000,000 for Scotland— maldng a grand total of 170,000,000. In 183.5. 
the quantity in both kingdoms could not have been less than 340,000,000 of bushels. In 
1755 the population of the whole island did not much, if any, exceed 7,500,000. In 

1831 it had risen to 16,52.5,180, being an increase of 9,000,000 or 120 per cent. ! Now, 
the improvements in agrieultm-e have more than kept pace with this prodigious increase of 
demand for its various productions; for it is agreed on all hands that the 16,500,000, or 
rather the 17,500,000, (for more than a million have been added since 1831,) arc much 
fuller fed, and on provisions of a far better quality, than the 7,500,000 were in 1755. 
Nor is Great Britain indebted at all, at present, to foreign markets for her supplies. Since 

1832 she has imported no gi-ain worth mentioning, and till within the last six months 
prices have been so exceedingly depressed as to call forth loud complaints from the whole 
agricultural interest of the countrj'. England is, at this moment, so far from wanting any 
of our bread stuiis, if we had them to export, that she has been supplying us all winter 
liberally from her own granaries ; and, according to the latest advices, she has still bread 
enough and to spare. Again : it is estimated by British writers, of high authority, that the 
subsistence of 9,000,000 of people costs, in raw produce, no less than £72,000,000, or 
£8 for each individual, per annum. According to this estimate, the annual product of this 
great branch of national industry is $350,000,000 more at present than it was in 1755 ; 
which is more than twice the value of the whole cotton manufacture of the country m 
1831. Now, if it costs $350,000,000 to feed the increased population of 9,000,000, then 
to feed the present population of 17,500,000 must cost near §700,000,000 ! What an 
amazing agricultural product for so small a territory I And yet it is the opinion of prac- 
tical men of liie highest respectability in England, that the raw produce of the island might 
be well nigh doubled, without any greater proportional expense being incurred in its produc- 
tion. That is to say, 35,000,000 of people might draw their subsistence from that one 
little speck in the ocean ! Now, we have a territory more than fifteen times as large as the 
island of Great Britain; and what should hinder it, when it comes to be brought under na 
higher cultivation than some parts of England and Scotland, from sustaining a population of 
Jive or sta; hundred millions of people 1 This would give to Virginia something like thirty 
millions — to Illinois and Missouri about the same number each — to New York near twenty- 
Jive millions — and so in proportion to the other States. I am quite aware that this estimate 

will be regarded as extremely visionary and incredible, by many of your readers ; but not 



33 % 

more so than it would have been thought in the middle of the last century, that England 
Scotland, and Wales, could ever be made to sustain thirty-five or even thirty millions."* 

If ,the report of the committee had shown that, from the present 
price of the public lands, it was impossible for a purchaser to real- 
ize a profit from their cultivation greater than the interest of the 
amount of capital invested in the purchase, there v/ould have been, 
some cause, not perhaps for complaint, but for a deliberate investi- 
gation of the present policy of the land system, and its relative bear- 
ings upon the Western and Eastern land interests of the nation. But 
when the report does not attempt to urge such an argument, and it 
is the only feasible argument, I humbly conceive, that could be urged, 
we are left to the irresistible inference that a request has been 
made of Congress which is supported by neither the powerful aux- 
iliary of leason nor the still more potent influence of justice. 

So far is it from the fact, that the investments of money in Western 
lands do not realize profit, reasonable and abundant, the very reverse 
is established by the experience of every individual who has tested 
the experiment. And the truth of the assertion which 1 now make 
cannot be denied : that in no part of the United States is wealth so 
rapidly augmenting, upon the amount of capital invested, as is being 
realized in the very State in which the honorable chairman of the 
committee who made this report [Mr. Clay, of Alabama] resides, 
and in the adjoining State of Mississippi. Whilst the most laborious 
and judicious farmers of the Atlantic wheat-growing States realize 
scarcely, on an average, five per cent, on the amount of capital in- 
vested in land and its cultivation, the cotton planters of Alabama 
and Mississippi are realizing from fifteen to forty per cent, upon the 
capital employed. I have in my hand an estimate which, at my par- 
ticular request, was given me by a skilful and distinguished planter 
of one of the Southwestern new States, in which it is shown that, 
from a capital of ^20,000, invested in the purchase of a cotton plant- 
ation, and hands and stock, and all the incidental expenses attend- 
ant upon a year's cultivation, at an usual average of crop, and a 



* A judicious gentleman, (General Dearborn,) has also recently well said that — 
" With us land is so abundant, in comparison with the population, that we have no just 
conception of its value, as estimated in those portions of the globe where the inhabitants are 
so numerous that a few roods are considered an estate so ample that the fortunate proprietor is 
accounted an independent man. 

" But even in the vast extent of the United States, with the millions of acres still in a state 
of nature, how many thousands are now cultivated which, a few generations since, ay, in our 
day, were deemed worthless 1 In England, what extensive morasses have been reclaimed, 
and added to the domain of agriculture, while the heath-covered mountains of Wales and 
Scotland are rapidly being planted with magnificent forests, not for embellishment merely, but 
as inexhaustible sources of wealth. The old Duke of Athol planted on his estates in Perth- 
shire 15,593 acres, which contained 27,431,600 young trees; and his successor set out 
6,500 acres of poor mountain ground solely with larches. The land was not then worth over 
22 cents rent per acre ; and now, with the timber on it, is valued at 32,500,000 dollars. The 
citizens of this country have, here and there, selected the most fertile and eligible locations, 
and call most of the vast remainder of the land either reftjse or worthless. Time, and th« 
increase of population, will show that nearly the lohole will become more valuable than even 
what is now deemed the most choice." 
3 



34 

moderate price, the investment would realize fifty per cent., or ten 
thousand dollais clear profit ; and this estimate does not place the 
price of the land at $\ 25. but allows ten dollars per acre. From 
the best information I can gather, I am led to the conclusion that, 
upon the capital employed in the cultivation of cotton in Alabama 
and Mississippi, for the last few years, the profits have been more 
frequently higher than forty per cent, than lower than twenty. The 
profits are enormous ; and there are no gold mines in the world that 
are realizing such considerable profits from the capital invested, as is 
being acquired from the cultivation of cotton, on the cotton lands of 
the Southwestern region of the Union. 

Not only has the cultivation of the land proved profitable, but the 
speculations in land uncultivated have been, in most cases, equally 
so. I would ask if there are not many who have purchased land of 
the Government, at the trifling price of one dollar and twenty-five 
cents per acre, who have realized large profits from it ? Are there 
not gentlemen within the sound of my voice who have purchased 
land of the Government, within the last twelve months, and have re- 
alized more than an hundred per cent, upon it. Are there not gen- 
tlemen now in this Capitol who have purchased land within the 
last year, at ^1 25 per acre, who have since sold it, realizing 
by the sale more than seven hundred per cent? (A voice on my 
right says, yes, more than a thousand per cent.) I believe it. This f 
know to be the fact ; and yet I do expect that many gentlemen will 
be found in the negative vote upon these resolutions. 

Speculations in land are carried on now to a most unexpected ex- 
tent at the present prices ; reduce the piice, and adventurers in that 
pursuit will increase to an extent which will make land-jobbing, in- 
stead of frugal cultivation, the business of many thousands who have 
capital or credit to use, and throw into the hands of large capitalists 
a vast amount of land, which will be sold, as is too much the case 
already, in small parcels, to settlers, at a very advanced price. The 
present low price of public land has not been calculated to improve 
the mode of cultivating the soil in the United States, and to reduce 
the price will make it to be still less attended to. The present 
operation of the system has been to induce those who purchase, to 
buy large tracts of land, cut down the timber, and, by a rapid suc- 
cession of crops, to exhaust the soil without replenishing it or en- 
riching it ; but as soon as it becomes exhausted to discard it, leave 
it an exhausted waste, and then purchase fresh lands for ^1 25, 
renew the same operation upon those, and in turn discard them. 
This has been the case to a great extent ; and even in Tennessee, 
at this moment, there are vast quantities of lands which have been 
thus used and abused, and are now called waste or discarded lands. 
If a still further reduction should take place, you would invite the 
farmer not to look upon his farm as his home — his abiding place 
for life — but merely as a resting place for a few years, in his rai- 
graiory excursion from farm to farm, from section to section, 
carrying destruction with him, and leaving ruin and poverty in- 



35 X 

his wake, like the devastating locusts of Egypt or of South Amer- 
ica, preying in theii- progress upon the verdure of the soil, leaving 
naught but gaunt hunger and desolation to mark their progress. Or 
like the shepherds ol antiquity, whose gregarious herds would de- 
stroy the spontaneous yieldings of one plain but to depasture upon 
another, so that a sparse and itinerant few comprised the entire in- 
habitants of vast national territories. 

I am not one of those economists who think that the prosperity 
of the agricultural interest depends upon each farmer holding in 
possession vast tracts of land ; and that, by reducing the price of 
land, you will allow him the means of appropriating to his exclusive 
use extensive tracts of the public domain. By doing so, you neither 
promote the agricultural interest of the nation, nor do you, by such 
a policy, improve the mode of cultivation. The wealth of a nation, 
like that of a farmer, depends upon the amount of useful and profit- 
able productions which are brought into market. Where farms are 
small, the cultivation becomes improved, and the yield per acre be- 
comes more abundant and profitable ; the land is made more valuable 
and the expense of cultivation greatly reduced. Look at those re- 
gions of the United States where the land is naturally good, and 
cultivation has improved its quality! They are distributed in small 
farms. You will find not only the greatest amount of production 
and profit, but a population prosperous, numerous, and happy. 
Phelpstown, in Ontario county. New York, contains, perhaps, the 
most dense agricultural population in the United States, and the 
farms will average not more than from fifty to one hundred and fifty 
acres. Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, is more densely populated 
and abundant in wealth than any county in the State, of its geo- 
graphical extent. The farms there are very small, yet highly cul- 
tivated. In the county of Frederick, in my own State, the farms 
are generally small — smaller than they are in any other county in 
the State; — yet agriculture has attained a degree of improvement 
which characterizes no other county ; and that county prospers in 
wealth and population beyond any in Maryland. 

Look at the history of Germany, Belgium, and Poland, where 
agriculture has attained a high state of improvement! You will 
find the farms small, the yield great, and the population crowded ; 
and in the latter nation, especially, notwithstanding it has been so 
frequently desolated by wars. For it is true that population will 
increase in proportion to the facilities of supporting its wants ; and 
hence it is that Russia increases in population more rapidly than 
any nation of Europe, because its vast extent of territory, much of 
it very productive, affords all the means of producing all the prime 
necessaries of life. So in the United States, whose population in- 
creases more rapidly than that of any nation on earth, because we 
have not only a climate of every temperature, and in many respects 
the most congenial that could be desired, but because we have the 
means of producing the substantial necessaries of life with the 
.least expense and labor, in consequence of the cheapness of lands 



36 

and their immense fertility. When on a tour to the North, a few- 
years since, I saw on the borders of Crooked lake, in New York, 
land which sold for but ten dollars an acre, and had been clothed 
with the richest forest of timber, which had been felled, and yielded 
to the proprietor, for the wood alone, about fifty dollars per acre. 
The soil, unbroken by the plough, was well set in wheat, which had 
been sown upon the surface of the earth only by the slight aid of the 
harrow, and was expected to yield from twenty to thirty bushels of 
wheat to the acre. I have seen the same process of pitching a crop 
in the Western States, that promised a greater production : then, 
why cannot a purchaser afford to give ^5 instead of $1 25 per acre? 

When such immense productions and profits result from so small 
a capital invested, and such moderate labor applied, in a latitude sa 
far north, what must be tiie profits upon an investment in fresh lands 
in the Southern portions of the Union, where there is a more genial 
sun, and a soil ready to produce, almost unaided by art, by the mere 
spontaneity of nature ! You can imagine the individual profit to 
those persons living in such favored legions of the country, when 
the fact is known, that in the new and fertile State of Mississippi, 
which contained a population, at the last census, of about eighty 
thousand white inhabitants, the exports, two or three years ago, 
amounted to the immense sum of ten millions of dollars. Range 
your inquiries over the whole Atlantic tier of States, and where 
will you find any agricultural population, of equal numbers with that 
of Mississippi, which produces in value one half the amount of pro- 
ductions.'' Where else on the face of the habitable globe will you 
find the same number of people as are comprised within the limits 
of that State, who realize the like amount of profits from a similar 
amount of capital and labor.'' Its parallel is nowhere to be found. 

Whilst all the productions of the forest, soil, mines, and work- 
shops, which passed through all the New York canals during the 
last current year, amounted in value to ^55,809,288, which was the 
result of the labor of perhaps more than two millions of persons, 
the whole amount of our exports of domestic articles, during the 
last year, is but $95,564,414. 

And yet we are gravely called upon to adopt the levelling, the 
agrarian system, upon the pretext that it will benefit the agricultural 
interest of the nation ; that by reducing the price of the public lands, 
by virtually giving up and surrendering to squatters, to idlers and 
adventurers, the whole landed property of the nation, we will pro- 
mote the welfare of the agricultural portions of the country. If, in 
violation of the law of the compacts, Congress should thus give up 
and divide in common, to whoever may seize upon it, the public do- 
main, what guarantee will you have that the principle may not be 
carried one step farther .'' That the next attempt will not be to divide 
all the property of the nation ? Sir, the same reason that will justify 
the former measure will sustain the latter. 1 ask, can such a policy, 
in part, or in general adoption, promote the interest of the farmer ? 
Did Lycurgus adopt the agrarian laws for the purpose of promoting, 



37 ^ 

the domestic parsuits of agriculture ? Or was it to destroy them ? 
His policy was to destroy the attachment which men of industrious 
habits acquire for the soil which sustains them ; an attachment made 
doubly strong ichen the land is acquired by hard industry, and for 
a valuable consideration. He was not for encouraging the rural 
and domestic arts ; he was anxious to rear up a band of soldiers, a 
mere army of plunderers, too idle to work, and trained only to depre- 
date upon and plunder the hard earnings of his more industrious 
neighbors. They were taught to despise the tame pursuits of hon- 
est industry, and boys were trained, from infancy, first to steal, and 
afterwards to plunder. All Laconia was nothing more than a camp 
of outlaws and freebooters. Men were made to choose their wives 
in the dark ; and children too puny to make soldiers were drowned, 
to prevent being a tax upon the state. Justice was outraged, and 
every moral sense of delicacy oifended. 

One of the features of the Lycurgus agrarian system, which has 
been much panegyrized by all historians, has been omitted, perhaps 
through prudential considerations, in the bill before me, reported 
from the Committee on the Public Lands. Whilst Lycurgus divided 
the property of the nation, he also abolished the habits of extrava- 
gance and luxury, and had all vine trees cut down in his kingdom. 
Whilst modern politicians and law-makers will advise the passing 
of laws to divide the property of the nation, and expect to render 
themselves popular by such a scheme, you cannot find one who will 
hazard the consequences of recommending a provision to destroy 
vineyards or to demolish distilleries. To arrest this tendency to lev- 
ellingism, Congress should promptly mark it with the frown of its 
disapprobation ; or many ambitious men who, having a small capital 
of talent to sustain their aspiring views, will resort to the public prop- 
erty, in order to hold out a bribe to the indolent, that, in consideration 
of their suffrages, they will reward them by giving each voter a farm, 
to serve only as a pepper-corn, to show by what tenure their lands 
and their votes shall be holden. 

Sir, I disclaim any personal allusion to any member on this floor. 
1 have nothing to do with the motives of honorable members, and 
shall not inflict the cruelty of impugning motives. But in these days 
of ambition, of levelling talent, and equalising property, I do most 
verily believe that there are in the United States some politicians 
who would pull down any thing short of the pillars of heaven, to 
aggrandize and elevate themselves. 

To induce Congress to reduce the price of the public lands which 
have been surveyed, an appeal is made to awaken the prejudices of 
what the honorable author of the report calls the "poor," who have 
been " driven^'' — yes, sir, that is the language of the report, " driv- 
en^'' — by the oppressions of the rich " capitalist ;" or in the words 
of the report, " if the bill (to reduce the price of the public lands) 
were adopted, ' portions' of the lands would be purchased by poor 
men, who have been driven from the more fertile tracts by men of large 
capital, and by speculators." How have the poor been driven from 



38 

the rich lands ? If they had seized upon them without purchasCj. 
they had seized upon what was not their property ; and they were- 
not more entitled to them than an individual who would rescue from' 
you part of jour wealth, upon the justification that you had more 
than you could wisely appropriate or use. If they had purchased 
the rich lands, the rich capitalists could not deprive them of such 
lands ; for even-handed justice protects every man in the rightful 
possession of his property. Then I am at a loss to conceive how it 
could have entered the contemplation of the author of this report, 
that the rich could drive the poor from rich lands. But does the 
gentleman design to benefit the poor, by placing them upon poor 
lands, as is intimated in the report ? Induce the poor man to settle' 
on poor lands, and you will compel him to remain poor all his life ;- 
he must live poor, and must die poor. One acre of rich land is more 
valuable to a poor man than fifty acres of poor land ; whilst less 
labor and less expense are incurred in the cultivation of the single 
acre, the productions may be greater than those arising from the fifty. 
It would be perhaps ungenerous to charge the honorable author 
with introducing this part of the report for captandum effect ; and I 
will not do so, though there are those who would beguile the peo- 
ple, outrage the law, and endeavor to delude the poor and to win 
their favor; who would inculcate in them the belief that the laws 
oppressed them; and, for that reason, they should not respect the 
laws. Politicians who would promote an evil under such a pretext 
do not merit any feeling higher than the cordial censure which ex- 
cited indignation may inflict. But, sir, such arguments have been 
used in all times to effect such ends. Graphic Shakspeare knew 
well what arguments to give his characters, to operate upon the 
human passions and prejudices, and what to induce a violation of the 
law — that even poison itself might be administered : 

•' Art thou so bare; and full of wretchedness, 
And fear'st to die 1 famine is in thy cheeks. 
Need and oppression starveth in thy eyes. 
Upon thy back hangs ragged nrisery. 
The world is not thy friend, nor the world's law : 
The world aflbrds no law to make thee rich ; 
Then be not poor, but break it, and take this." 

Human passions are ever operated upon by designing men to effect 
a favorite scheme, or to promote an intended measure, by like argu- 
ments and kindred hopes. Though laws may change with the ever- 
changing condition of society, yet the laws of human nature are al- 
ways the same ; and now, as in times past, the designing man knows 
how to wake the prejudices of the people, and to draw ideal lines be- 
tween the rich and the poor. Poor himself in the rich virtues of the 
human heart, he urges them first to complain, then to remonstrate^, 
then to spread wide their excitement; whilst he ranks himself by 
their side, in hopes finally to ride on their backs into exalted office. 

I am sorry to find in the report a distinction between the people- 
of the United States; and that one portion are called poor, another 
portion rich. I neither know nor recognise any such distinctioHo. 



39 ^ 

The only poor, as a class, that we have in this favored nation are the 
paupers in the various poor-houses throughout the nation. There is 
no other class that merits the epithet. Is the man in the prime of 
life, with vigor of body, industriously earning; by labor enough to 
support himself with comfort, and to supply himself with all the ne- 
cessaries of life, to be called poor .'' Assuredly he cannot be called 
so, when he can so easily procure all that is essential to his comfort 
and happiness. Though not a landholder, though not spending his 
life in luxury and indolence, a man who can live comfortably by his 
honest industry is rich in all the essentials of happiness. And who 
that is honest and industrious cannot make a decent livelihood in 
this nation, where labor is in such great demand, and where wages 
are higher than in any part of the world ? Have any memorials been 
presented to this House from the poor, calling upon Government to 
give them lands, or to give them money, to make them a class to be 
fed from the national Treasury and national bounty ? No, sir ; the 
honest man, however indigent, makes no such request; his pride, 
excited by justice, will not deign to make such a demand. All that 
he asks of the Government is to protect him in all his civil, politi- 
cal, and religious liberties; to adopt that policy that will allow him 
ample wages for his industry, and render secure and inviolate his 
own property. However inconsiderable it may be to him, it is as 
valuable as the large possessions of the more fortunate. Less should 
not be required, more cannot be expected, in reason or in justice. 

But once adopt the bill under consideration, and what will be the 
consequences? Such as I have already described. By the reduc- 
tion of the price of the lands you induce persons to take possession 
of them ; not for permanent abiding-places, but simply to cut down 
and destroy or sell the timber, exhaust the lands by rapid and re- 
peated culture, then throw them away, discard them as waste lands, 
and enter fresh lands, in order to abuse them in like manner ; which, 
in the language of the report, " would result in the sale of many 
thousands, if not millions of acres, which otherwise will not be sold 
so quickly, but be deprived of timber, exhausted, and worn out, by 
those who have no inducement to preserve the soil longer than for 
even temporary use ; which is not only detrimental to the interest 
of the United States, but highly injurious to the particular State in 
which they may happen to lie." 

This language of the report sustains most forcibly my own posi- 
tions, and destroys the force of the recommendation of another part 
of the report. 

But it is almost always the case that arguments are contradictory, 
when they are used to urge a ruinous measure, or to sustain one 
which is not wise and reasonable. 

Such, then, will be the operation of this policy, if adopted, and 
such will be its inevitable consequences. 

I ask honorable gentlemen from the new States, how can they 
reconcile their support of a measure to reduce the price of the public 
lands with their duty to those of their constituents who have pur- 



40 

chased lands at the present price, under the belief that the policy of 
the Government was fixed and permanent ? Are they willing to 
sacrifice the value of the property of one portion of the people of the 
new States, to gratify the cupidity and hungry appetites of another ? 
If they are, I am not. I ask, would it be in good faith, on the part 
of Congress, to sell to one portion lands at twenty-five cents an acre, 
when they have exacted of another one dollar and a quarter? Will 
you thus depreciate the price of the property of the industrious 
farmers who have bought lands, and tell the eager speculator that 
he may enter lands adjoining at twenty-five cents, and thereby be 
enabled to undersell his neighbor ? 

The report frequently repeats the assertion that the measure pro- 
posed will advance the interest and prosperity of the farmer; and 
quotes a passage from the President's message, which can have but 
little applicability to the question, and can merit but little favor from 
the farming interest of the country. The report reads : 

" But the amount of money to be realized from the public domain is not the sole nor 
even the chief consideration which should influence and determine the policy of a wise and 
patriotic Government. In the language of the President, in his annual message of De- 
cember, 1832, 'the wealth and strength of a country are its population, and the best part 
of that population are the cultivators of the soil. Independent farmers are every where the 
liasis of society, and true friends of liberty.' These sentiments, it is hoped, will find a 
cordial response in every bosom. Their truth and justness are attested by all history. It 
may be asked, triumphantly, when did the cultivators of the soil willingly abandon the prin- 
ciples, or knowingly become the enemies, of free government ] The soundness of the 
principle laid down is sustained by the most approved doctrines of political economy, and 
sanctioned by practical experience." 

This all reads very well ; but are the farming interest to be lulled 
by a compliment of this kind, or can they regard it as a compliment, 
in the refinement of this nineteenth century, to be called honest and 
friends of liberty? Why, the presumption of law, not only now, but 
in the feudal times and before, sanctioned the belief that even a 
thief, arrainged before the bar of justice, was honest and virtuous, 
however strongly charged, until the proof of guilt was made mani- 
fest by a verdict of his peers.'' Why, then, quote the President as 
authority to prove what no one has ever for the last thousand years 
questioned } And why not say that the mechanics are likewise 
friends of liberty.'' Or is the design to quiet the suspicions of the 
farmers, and silence their indignation, by the garnishment of an ill- 
graced compliment, whilst you sacrifice their property by deprecia- 
ting its value, in order to win favors with the land speculators of the 
West and their tribe of dependents } 

I cannot but esteem the mechanic as patriotic as the farmer, and 
as truly devoted to liberty. U I felt desirous to follow the illustrious 
example of the committee, I might say that, although General Jack- 
son complimented the farmer, the like is done once a year by the 
Emperor of the Celestial Empire. There are equally illustrious 
examples in favor of mechanical pursuits. Peter the Great, Czar of 
all the Russias, did not hesitate to work at the ship-yard, in respect 
for mechanical pursuits, and to stimulate his people to do likewise. 
Charles V, Emperor of Germany and King of France, resigned the 



41 

sceptre which he had wielded over more than half of Europe, and 
became a clock-maker. 

This language of General Jackson's message is quoted in the re- 
port made by the Committee on the Public Lands to the twenty- 
third Congress ; it is carefully copied in the report made by the 
committee to this twenty-fifth Congress. When arguments fail, 
General Jackson's name and messages are brought in to fill the 
chasm, in every long or short report. 

When Mark Anthony desired to deceive the people, that he might 
himself be elevated to the first honor in the Slate of Rome, he read 
to them Caesar's will, and told them how much Caesar loved them : 

"To every Roman citizen he gives, 

To every several man, seventy-five drachmas. 

Moreover, he hath left you all his walks. 

His private arbors, and new-planted orchards, 

On this side Tiber. He hath left them you, 

And to your heirs forever ; common pleasures, 

To walk abroad and recreate yourselves. 

Here was a Caesar: When comes such another?" 

The report which has been laid on our desks this session, made 
by a Committee on the Public Lands, contains several passages from 
General Jackson's messages, which have been quoted a hundred 
times : 

"A large portion of our citizens have seated themselves on the public lands ivithout 
authority, since the passage of the last pre-emption law, and now ask the enactment of 
another, to enable them to retain the lands occupied, upon payment of the minimum 
Government price. They ask that which has been repeatedly granted before." 

What a spectacle of lawless outrage does this present ! And yet 
the only argument urged to countenance it is that the public prop- 
erty has been seized upon by force, and therefore we should legal- 
ize that force and lawless depredation, when the very sentence 
quoted proves that the countenance given by Government to former 
squatters was hailed as an invitation for every adventurer to seize 
upon as much of the public domain as his avarice could desire. Yet 
the argument is used as well as quoted, that the outrage of one 
measure upon the interest of the nation should be sanctioned and 
justified by that of a former. If such is the political morality of any 
public man, I do not wish to be considered a convert to the creed. 

The most dangerous doctrine to liberty is the doctrine of prece- 
dent, unsanctioned by the voice of reason and justice. Glaring 
infractions are quickly seen and exposed, and at once awaken the 
indignation of the public ; but slow, gradual, and constant usurpa- 
tions and abuses awaken but little alarm, and finally become sanc- 
tioned by time, and even error itself almost becomes consecrated by 
habit and usage. That distinguished writer who aroused, by the 
force of his brilliant imagination, his attic wit, his withering sar- 
casm, and powerful reasoning, the whole British realm to check and 
awe prerogative, in the dedication of his " Letters of Junius" to the 
English people, summed up the moral essence of all his writings in 
a caution against the prescription of abuses : 



43 



*• Let me exhort and conjure you (he says) never to suffer an invasion of your poHtical 
constitution, however minute the instance may appear, to pass by without a detennined, 
persevering resistance. One precedent creates another ; they soon accumulate, and consti- 
tute law. What yesterday was fact, to-day is doctrine. Examples are supposed to justify 
the most dangerous measures ; and when they do not suit exactly, the defect is supplied by 
analogy. Be assured that the laws which protect us in our civil rights grow out of the 
constitution, and that they must fall or flourish with it." 

Abuses as well as errors are to be sustained by usage and habit, 
and the terror of General Jackson's name is to be held up, to awe 
or to allure all who pause to doubt. Hence its frequent introduction: 

" His silver hairs 

Will purchase us a good opinion. 

And buy men's voices to commend our deeds." 

Can it be urged, in justification of the daily depredations which 
have been committed on the Government lands, that none are sur- 
veyed and ready for entry at the land offices in the various States ? 
That cannot be urged ; for the following statement from the Commis- 
sioner of the Land Office will show that, at this time, there are 
88,339,336.44 acres: 

Exhibit of the quantity of public land surveyed, the quantity offered for 
sale from the earliest period of the sales to the end of the year 1837, anci 
the quantity unsold and subject to entry on the 30th of September^ 1837. 



States 


and TeiTitories. 


Quantity of public land 


Quantity of public land 








surveyed — acres. 


offered for sale — acres. 


Ohio, 






16,555,952.17 


16,512,110.65 


Indiana, 


- 


- 


20,15.5,697.67 


18,464,679.82 


Illinois, 


- 


. 


24,975,656.31 


23,991,748.89 


Missouri, 


- 


- 


21,440,796.58 


21,004,365.47 


Alabama, 


- 


- 


29,856,270.19 


29,265,055.93 


Mississippi, 


- 


- 


20,791,826.32 


20,172,482.34 


Louisiana, 


- 


- 


10,530,359.43 


6,543,393.39 


Michigan, 


- 


. 


13,532,192.50 


12,731,853.08 


Arkansas, 


- 


. 


13,913,431.31 


12,662,900.88 


Florida, 


- 


- 


9,254,297.73 


6,218,573.26 


Wisconsin, 






8,679,605.39 


4,807,307.20 




189,686,085.60 


172,374,470.91 



Quantity of public land offered for sale as above, 
Of which this quantity was offered for sale subsequent to the 30th 
September, 1837, - - - - , - 



Quantity sold, as per table A, herewith, - 75,025,055.50 

Of the quantity of land represented above to 

have been offered at public sale, there has 

been appropriated for common schools and 

other purposes, - - - 8,872,074.67 



Acres. 
172,374,470.91 

138,004.30 

172,236,466.61 



83,897,130.17 



Leaves the quantity unsold and subject to entry on 50th September,1837, 88,339,336.44 



43 
Both reports state : 

•' That the committee concur in the views of President Jackson, in his annual message 
to the two Houses of Congress in 1835, in which he says : 'It seems to be the true policy,^ 
that the public lands shall cease as soon as practicable to be a source of revenue ; and that 
they be sold to settlers, in limited parcels, at a price barely sufficient to reimburse to the- 
United States the expenses of the present system, and cost arising under our Indian com- 
pacts.'" 

This proposition, so ruinous to the old States, and I believe to th& 
new, if adopted, was used by the President, when there was an over- 
flowing surplus in the Treasury. This language is now quoted and 
used, in the report of this session, v^hen the Treasury is bankrupt, 
and has not one dollar of gold or silver in it but what is purchased, 
and is driven to the drift of issuing a suspicious kind of paper rnoney^ 
To reduce the price of the Western lands would be to invite all 
who desire to purchase Government land to delay making pur- 
chases until the limitation of the time shall expire, when the land& 
may be entered at the low price of twenty-five cents per acre, which 
is proposed ; and in the mean time it will force those who have al- 
ready purchased, for the purpose of reselling, to dispose of their 
lands at a reduced price. So, whilst it will destroy in a great degree 
all revenue to the Government by sales, it will have the tendency of 
ruining many who have purchased of the Government upon its faith 
to continue the present system and the present price. 

How gentlemen can sacrifice the interests of so large a portion of 
their constituency, by sustaining such a proposition, to indulge the 
avaricious longings of another portion, is not my business to inquire. 
Or how any member from any of the old States can countenance, 
wilh the slightest look of approbation, such a measure, puzzles my 
judgment. What maxim of political economy will justify it ? What 
principle of reason ? What sentiment of justice ? I am slow to be- 
lieve that motives of policy which war upon sound reason and strict 
justice can induce its support, or that the considerations of interested 
influences, which have ulterior hopes and sinister objects, will war- 
rant so great a departure from the faith of the compacts, or so un- 
warrantable a surrender of the interest and property of all the States 
to the cupidity of a few, so that a portion of the new States shall 
be aggrandized at the expense and sacrifice of the old. Or are the 
prophecies of old to be twice fulfilled : that " the one people shall be 
stronger than the other people ; and the elder shall serve the 
younger.'''' 

If there be any member on this floor from an old State who- 
" despises his birthright," 1 would repudiate the belief that 1 am 
that member. I do not belong to that Esau tribe that will dispose 
of the pledged inheritance of myself, my constituents, and my State,. 
for a present feast of "red pottage." 

The behest of a party, if given, could never, 1 hope, induce me 
to commit so wanton an injury upon the people of my State and the 
nation, whilst a representative on this floor, as to surrender their 
dear-bought interest in the great public domain. Nor could the 



44 

command of any individual, however exalted his station or elevated 
his hopes, influence my calm judgment on this subject. Political 
triumphs or defeats should never enter into the consideration of this 
question. I rejoice not like the Swiss at the setting sun, nor like 
the Persian at the rising. I would look more at things than persons, 
less upon men than their measures, and severely scrutinize both. 
I cannot adopt the diplomacy of the Scotchman in the Man of the 
World, who could 7iever stand straight in the presence of a great 
man. I would judge of virtuous men by their acts, and of public 
men by the wisdom of their measures. He who acts upon meas- 
ures by principle, and makes the broad and enduring interest of 
the nation his controlling consideration, cares but little whether he 
be with the many or the few, so long as he has the approbation of 
an upright and approving conscience : that affords him abundant 
consolation, and if placed in retirement he can then truly say, with 
the Grecian, that he never feels less alone than when alone. 

Oft this occasion I cannot but allude to what I consider a false 
position which General Jackson is made to take by the report of the 
Committee on the Public Lands at this session. 

General Jackson predicated his reasons in favor of a reduction of 
the price of the public lands upon the ground that they furnished a 
surplus revenue, made an overflowing Treasury ; and he thought that 
an evil would result to the nation from an eager avidity on the part 
of the States to be possessed of the distributable surplus. Others, 
I know, thought that his reasons were more of a personal character, 
because some of his distinguished opponents advocated a distribu- 
tion of the surplus revenue among the various States. I am willing 
to believe that the former were the reasons which induced the rec- 
ommendation in his message. 

Do not the committee perceive that the reasons urged by the 
President at that time are inapplicable now? Where is your surplus 
treasure now.'' Have you a redundancy of money in the Treasury 
at this time."* Is it overflowing, as it w^as a few years ago .'' It can- 
not have been forgotten that you passed a bill at the extra session to 
withhold the fourth instalment of the distribution act, upon the ground 
that the Treasury was bankrupt. It cannot be forgotten that you 
passed a bill to authorize the Secretary of the Treasury to issue ten 
millions of Treasury notes. All know that the chairman of the Fi- 
nancial Committee has reported a bill to issue another ten millions. 
Then, when the Treasury is delinquent some twenty millions, how 
can the arguments of General Jackson apply, which were predicated 
upon a surplus of some forty millions.'' The committee should rec- 
ollect there was no distinct proposition presented at the time when 
General Jackson wrote his message, to have the public lands, or a 
portion of them, distributed among the old States, for the specific 
purpose of education ; the propositions were diff'erent and compound. 
Nor was there a simple and definite proposition of this character 
when Mr. Van Buren wrote his last message. As limited as my 
favorable opinion is of both of those distinguished personages as 



45 ^ 

wise and practical statesmen, I do not believe that either of them 
could be so unmindful of the public interest, so deaf to the voice of 
the indigent, so cruel to the offspring of the needy, so indifferent to 
the interest of all of the States, as not to give a cordial sanction to a 
measure which v/ould exalt the condition of all, by carrying educa- 
tion to every habitation in the nation. Mad the direct proposition 
been submitted to General Jackson to distribute among the States, 
upon some equitable basis, the whole proceeds of the public lands 
as a permanent fund for educational purposes, I have no doubt in 
my mind tbat he would cordially have approved of it. Were it 
submitted to Mr. Van Buren, I fully believe that he would sanction 
it. They have both risen from the plain and humble walks of life 
to the first honors of the nation; and they could not be so unnatural 
as to arrest the facilities which general education would afford to 
the humble poor as well as to the more fortunate in life. 

The proposition which I have offered is to extend to the old States 
the like quantity of the public lands which have been given to the 
new. It goes farther: it proposes an appropriation of an additional 
quantity to all the States and Territories, without specifying the 
precise amount. 

It is the principle and the policy of the measure which I have 
thought suiHcient for the present to discuss, without embarrassing it 
with details, leaving the latter to be adjusted by the committee 
which the House may charge with the subject. 

I have no hesitancy in stating, however, that I should prefer that 
the whole proceeds of the sales of the public lands should be set 
apart for the exclusive support of academies and common schools in 
all of the States. Such propositions have been made, as I will 
presently show, at various times. 

If the same amount should be distributed to the old which the 
new States have received, (hey would receive, as the following table 
will show, which may not in all respects be accurate, the following 
amounts: 

New Hampshire contslns 6,074,240 acres. ^crta. 

One tliirty-sixth part of that extent, being' the proportion of the public 
lands which that State would be entitled to for the support of com- 
mon schools, is - - - - 168,728 

One fifth of that thirty-sixth for colleges and academies, is - 33,745 



Vermont contains 6,551,680 acres. 

One thirty-sixth part, - - - . 181,991 

One fifth of one thirty-sixth, ... 36,398 



202,473 



218,389 



Massachusetts, including- Maine, contains 28,990,000 acres. 

One thirty-sixth part, . - - . 805,277 

One fifth part, .... 161,055 

Total for Massachusetts and Maine, - - - 966,282 

Rhode Island contains 1,011,200 acres. 

One thirty-sixth part, .... 28,088 

One fifth part, - - - - 5,617 

33,705 



46 

•Connecticut contains 2,991,360 acres. 

One thirty-sixth part, - - - ' 83,093 

One fifth part, - - - - 16,618 

New York contains 28,800,000 acres. 

One thirty-sixth part, - - - - 800,000 

One fifth part, - - - " 160,000 

New Jersey contains 5,324,800 acres. 

One thirty-sixth part, - - - - 144,577 

One fifth part, - - ■ - 28,917 

Pennsylvania contains 29,872,000 acres. 

One thirty-sixth part, - - - - 829,777 

One fifth part, - - - - 165,955 

Delaware contains 1,356,800 acres. 

One tiiirty-sixth part, - - - - 37,688 

One fifth part, ... - 7,537 

Maryland contains 8,960,000 acres. 

One thirty-sixth part, - - - - 248,888 

One fifth part, -. . - - 49,777 

Virginia contains 44,800,000 acres. 

One thirty-sixth part, - - - 1,244,444 

One fifth part, ' • - - - 248,888 

North Carolina contains 29,720,000 acres. 

One thirty-sixth part, - - - - 825,555 

One fifth part, .... 165,111 

South Carolina contains 15,411,200 acres. 

One thirty-sixth part, - - - - 428,617 

One fifth part, - - - - 85,617 

<5eorgia contains 39,680,000 acres. 

One thirty-sixth part, - . - 1,102,222 

One fifth part, . , . - 226,444 

Kentucky contains 32,000,000 acres. 

One thirty -sixth part, - - - - 888,888 

One fifth part, .... 177,777 

1,066,665 

Total amount to the States which have not received lands, - - 9,370,760 

This amount of the public domain sold at ^2 an acre, which is 
about the average price which the public land has sold for, would 
make an aggregate of j^ 18,74 1,520. The simplest rule of mathe- 
matics will easily inform us how greatly these several amounts would 
increase, not only for the same beneficent purpose to the old, but to 
the new States likewise — for all would have a proportional interest 
and would receive a similar benefit in the measure — if all of the pub- 
lic domain were set apart for the promotion of education among all 
of the people of the nation. Nor do I entertain the slightest doubt 
that every State in the Union would give the measure its cordial and 
zealous sanction, if the question were brought home to the bosom of 



99,711 



960,000 



173,494 



995,732 



45,225 



298,665 



1,493,332 



980,666 



513,703 



1,328,666 



47 

every man in the Union. Many propositions of a like and kindred 
character have been submitted in this House and in the Senate. 

On the 12th of February, 1823, Mr. White moved that the House 
do come to the following resolution, viz : 

"Resolved, That the Committee of Ways and Means be instructed to inquire into the 
expediency of appropriating and setting apart a moiety or portion of the avails of the an- 
nual sales of the public lands, for the purpose of establishing a permanent increasing fund; 
the interest of which, after it shall have increased to a given sum, shall be distributed for 
the promotion of education in the several States, according to the principles of equal right 
and justice. " 

The following year (1824) Mr. Strong submitted the following 
resolution : 

" Resolved, That all moneys which shall be received on account of the sales and entries 
of the public lands, after the 4th day of July, 1825, ought to be appropriated exclusively to 
the support of common schools and the construction of roads and canals ; and that the said 
moneys ought to be divided between the several States and Territories, in proportion to the 
representation of each in the House of Representatives of the United States, and applied by 
them respectively to the aforesaid purposes, in such manner and with such Hmitations and 
conditions as the Congress may prescribe." 

The next year ( 1826) Mr. Dickerson, of the Senate, made a report 
«pon a similar resolution. 

The committee state that they "have come to the conclusion that great advantages would 
result to the United States from an annual distribution among them, b}' some equitable 
ratio, of a portion of our national revenue, for the purposes of education and internal im- 
provement, as the State Governments may respectively deem most to their advanta^-e &c. 

" Money, distributed as proposed, would give new activity to industry and enterprise in 
all the States, and that equally and simultaneously. 

"It would create a vigilance on the part of the State Governments over the expenditures 
of the General Government, and thereby prevent the waste of money, and the adoption of 
extravagant measures that might diminish the amount of the annual dividends. 

" It would secure impartial justice to all the States in the distribution of the expenditures 
of our revenue, a failure of which at present is a subject of loud and just complaint. 

"It would relieve the General Government of the serious inconvenience of an overflow- 
ing Treasury, which, if not provided for in the manner proposed, or by a reduction of our 
revenue, will impair the most im.portant principles of our constitution. 

"It would relieve the two Houses of Congress of a large portion of legislation, now de- 
voted to the disposal of our surplus funds — legislation of the worst kind, calculated to pro- 
duce combinations, sectional feelings, injustice, and waste of the public treasure." 

Although there was at that time a large national debt, estimated 
by the report of the Secretary of the Treasury to be, on the 1st day 
of January, 1826, ^80,985,537 25, yet the Senate's committee re- 
ported in favor of the plan of dividing the revenues from the public 
lands among the States, for the purposes of education and internal 
improvement, and state that — 

" Under a plan to distribute among the States a portion of our national revenue and at 
the same time to provide for the gradual reduction of the public debt, it is proposed to 
divide annually, after the year 1827, one half of the amount appropriated for the sinking 
fund, to wit, five millions of dollars, among the several States, by some equitable ratio 
until the funded debt bearing six per cent, interest shall be extinguished ; after that to 
.divide among the States ten millions of dollars annually, until the funded debt bearing five 
per cent, interest, and that bearing four and a half per cent, interest, shall be extinguished • 
and after that, to divide among the States Jif I een millions of dollars annually, leaving the 
residue of the funded debt, bearing three per cent, interest, to be redeemed at some distant 
period." 

Various other propositions have been urged, or rather introduced 
into each of the two Houses, prior and subsequent to the period I 



48 

have alluded to. One, which was reported by Mr. Clay, of Ken- 
tucky, and was ably supported, passed both Houses of Congress, 
but the executive veto of General Jackson prevented its being 
carried into operation. It was in some degree a modification of the 
various other propositions which had been introduced : it allowed 
a bounty of some fifteen per cent, upon the amount of sales of the 
public lands, in favor of those States within whose limits the lands 
might be situated. As a measure of final compromise, that measure 
was approved by both Houses of Congress. 

But 1 never could appreciate the force of the reasoning, upon 
principle, which would justify such a discrimination. The same rea- 
soning which will allow a bounty to the new States, because the 
land is generally sold within their limits, and the money paid into 
the Western land offices, would justify the old and importing States 
in exacting a similar bounty on the amount of revenue which they 
have to pay in the form of duties. Why should not Maryland exact 
fifteen per cent, upon the amount of revenue collected at the port of 
Baltimore, on the same grounds? That revenue is paid by her 
citizens And the mariner who pours the rich freight of his vessel 
into the lap of that city encounters, in truth, more peril and more 
hardship, in navigating the ocean, and encountering every danger, 
from pole to pole, than the Western pioneer does in felling the dark 
forests of the West. 

It was one of the strongest grounds of opposition to the adoption 
of the constitution which Luther Martin took in convention, as well 
as afterwards in his speech before the Legislature of Maryland, 
that, by the operation of the constitution, if adopted, Maryland would 
surrender all control over her commerce and its revenue, and it was 
one of the causes of his withdrawing himself from the convention. 

To be just before generous, is a maxim of equity as well as law, 
derived from the soundest principles of morality. 

I have read all the articles of cession, all the compacts, and can 
no where find even an intimation, a sentence of doubt, that will al- 
low one State to have a greater proportion of benefit from the pro- 
ceeds of the public lands than another. The General Government 
has been made an agent, a trustee, by the States, for their mutual 
convenience and benefit, with express injunctions to be impartial in 
the appropriation and distribution of the common property of all the 
States of this Union. 

On this part of the subject I shall offer one other extract, and that 
is ffrom the proceedings of the Legislature of Ohio ; and I cannot 
withhold my admiration of the sound and firm grounds which it has 
taken on this subject. A State, which but forty years ago was a vasi 
wilderness, by the bounty of the General Government and its soil, 
with an enterprising population, is now the third State in the Union 
in population and power, and already 

''leads 

New colonies forth, that towards the Western seas 
Spread like rapid flame among the autumnal trees." 



49 

The resolutions were passed on the 2d February, 1838, and the 
part which I shall read is as follows : 

" We do, therefore, declare that the public lands of the United States are the property 
of the whole Union, held in trust for the States ; that this trust can only be answered by 
giving to all the States the proper proceeds of their value ; that we protest against any 
change in the long-established system of managing the national estate, as it was devised by 
the Congress of the Revolution, and sustained by every administration of the Government 
till the present ; and we maintain that the lands shall be sold at their proper pi ice, for the 
benefit of all the people of the States, not squandered and confiscated for the benefit of a 
few ; and we also maintain that the six hundred millions of acres yet unsold are the great 
inheritance of the future people of these States ; and that any faithless consent of this gen- 
eration to abandon that inheritance to the Federal Government, to be sold piecemeal, and 
the money used as common revenue, would be to make that Government more powerful, 
and to foster extravagance in public expenditure, while it would lessen the rights of the 
States and deprive them of this unfailing means of advancing the condition of their peo- 
ple for centuries to come." 

For the reputation of the new States, I could wish that such senti- 
ments were more generally prevalent among them. And I may as 
well say at this time that my remarks in relation to appropriations of 
land, made by the General Government to the Western States for 
the promotion of education, do not apply but in a very limited de- 
gree to Kentucky and Tennessee. Kentucky has received a small 
portion, to aid some of her eleemosynary institutions, and Tennessee 
has received about two hundred thousand acres for academies and 
colleges. 

The views taken by the Legislature of Ohio are worthy of that 
enterprising and enlightened State, and commend themselves to the 
emulation of the older, less fortunate, and less prosperous States of 
the Union ; they show practical intelligence and sagacious wisdom ; 
they look beyond the present, and point to the distant future. In- 
stead of treating and using the vast public domain as a fund for politi- 
cal gambling and political bribery, instead of throwing it out as a lure 
to the ambitious or the avaricious, as is too much the case in the 
present day, how much better would it be for the present and future 
generations if it were set apart as a sacred fund, to be used for edu- 
cational purposes, and no other; not to be touched for any other 
purpose, in either peace or war. If the whole proceeds were set 
apart for that exclusive purpose, with the privilege of the States to 
invest one half of their distributive shares in works of internal im- 
provement, first guarantying to the Government, as the agent of all, 
(for I would have the present land system of the General Govern- 
ment continued,) the legal interest of the State on the amount in- 
vested in improvements, to be faithfully paid into the school fund of 
the State, this warfare between the State and General Governments 
would cease ; this conflict between different sections of the Union 
would end ; and a policy as enduring as our institutions would be 
established ; and our institutions would be made enduring by this 
very policy. 

" A despotism," says Montesquieu, " is supported by /ear, a repub- 
lic by virtue.'''' Our institutions can only be supported by the wide 
diffusion of moral education among all conditions of the|people. 
4 



50 

Those who limit their views to the present, and close their eyes to 
the future, are unsafe agents of the people. The lifetime of an indi- 
vidual is but a day in the history of a nation. 

Congress siiould legislate as if this nation and its free institutions 
were to be lasting ; it is only by viewing them so that they will be 
made perpetual. To look not alone at ourselves, selfish as human 
nature has formed us, but, in the language of Bulwer, to look at the 
eternal people y the teeming millions who are to crowd these States, 
to draw their support from its soil, and who must sink into igno- 
rance, into anarchy, or into despotism, if they hav^e not the means 
and facilities of early and progressive education. 

The calculation which I have already exhibited shows the proba- 
ble increase of population. I will offer a few more facts, as they 
will elicit in every judicious mind better arguments than any I 
could offer. 

The number of inhabitants to the square mile in the United States 
at the last census ( 1830) averaged 16: in New England 20.9, in the 
Middle States 26.3, in the Southern States 7, in Massachusetts 81, 
in New York 41.5, in Pennsylvania 30.6, in Ohio 24, in Illinois 3, 
in the Western States 11. Now, suppose that each State had at the 
present time a sum set ^part to educate all of their children, (which 
I will presently show is not the case,) how immensely that amount 
will have to increase to be sufficient to educate all the children of 
each State, when the population of each State becomes even as nu- 
merous as some of the nations of Europe at the present time. The 
number of inhabitants to a square mile in England is about 230, in 
France 160, in Germany it varies from 100 to 200. Humboldt has 
made a calculation, predicated upon the capability of the soil of 
America to produce the prime necessaries of life, and estimates that 
it is abundantly capable of supporting a population of 3,600,000,000 ; 
a mass of human beings five limes as numerous as all who now exist 
upon the face of the globe. He estimated that the number would be, 
in 1830, 21,000,000; without including Indians and negroes; in 1930, 
to be 336,000,000; in 2030, to be 2,380,000,000. The United 
States is the most productive region of the continent, excepting a 
portion of Mexico and a few provinces still further south. 

I will not fatigue the attention of the House by dwelling much 
longer upon these general considerations, but will attempt to pre- 
sent the question to the contemplation of the House, in relation to 
its bearings upon the present age and the rising generation ; for it 
seems to be a controlling principle of our nature to look less at the 
past, and to be more indifierent of the wordly future, than to seize 
with salutary avidity the present ; and it is a trait which all will 
admit the existence of in the American character, and which controls 
their pursuits in an eminent degree — the acquisition, by the shortest 
road, of the prize of affluence and wealth. The slow and gradual pur- 
suit of gain our restive and enterprising minds will neither appre- 
ciate nor comprehend. We lie down with dreamy visions of wealth, 
and awake boldly nerved for its speedy attainment. But we know ] 



51 

the value of education, and I am confident in the belief that Gov- 
ernment will adopt commensurate means for its more general diffu- 
sion. And, were we to extend our inquiries abroad, in order to as- 
certain if there is an urgent and pressing necessity to send the 
" schoolmaster abroad in the land," we would find, to our national 
reproach and deep and abiding mortification, that every region of 
the nation calls aloud for his services. There is no civilized and 
Christian nation on earth which boasts of its refinement, its wisdom, 
and its fame, that so imperatively requires a more liberal system of 
public schools. 

Let us examine, for a moment, the condition of education in the 
nations which we have too often been in the habit of contemplating 
as inferior to our own in the onward march of civilization and in- 
struction. According to Lord Brougham's statement, in 487 parishes 
in England there had been educated in 1818, when England adopt- 
ed a more liberal system of popular education, 50,000 children. 
What, let me ask, was the effect of that system ? In the same par- 
ishes, in 1828, there were educated 105,000; so that, in the brief 
period of tea years, the number of children who had received the 
benefits of education had more than doubled. What, let me ask, is 
the extent of the system pursued in other nations, and especially 
Prussia ? We find from an extract in Cousin, from a report pub- 
lished in the Royal Gazette of Berlin, in 1828, that, according to 
the census made at the end of 1825, the number of inhabitants in the 
whole of the Prussian monarchy amounted tol2, 256,725 ; amongst 
whom were 4,487,461 children under 14 years of age ; which gives 
366 children for every 1,000 inhabitants, or about eleven thirtieths 
of the nation. 

Admitting education in the public schools to begin at the age of 
7 years complete, we may calculate that three sevenths of the entire 
population of children are of an age to go to school, and we should 
have for the entire Prussian monarchy the number of 1,932,200 
children capable of receiving the benefits of education. Now, at 
the end of 1825, there were in the kingdom : 

Elementary schools for town and country, ordinarily for both 
sexes together, ..... - 20,887 

Bursher,or middle classes, |!:-^°^M5S I . . ,3^ 

Total, - - - - . . . 21,623 

In which were employed : 

Masters, - . . . . 22,261 

Mistresses, .... 704 



Total, ..... 22,968 
To which must be added - - 2,024 assistants. 
These schools extended instruction to : 

Bovs \ Elementary schools, . - 822,077 ) ^^ 

"^^^^^ I Burgher schools, - - 49,169 ( 871,246 



52 

Girls, j Elementary schools, - -^^5,922) ^ 

' ( Burgher schools, - - 37,050 ) ' 

Total number of children, - - - 1,664,218 

Now, we have reckoned the total population of children from 7 to 
14 years of age, in the whole monarchy, at 1,923,200 ; it follows, then, 
from the foregoing calculation, that out of every fifteen children^ 
THIRTEEN octually attend public schools ; and as we have to allow 
for those who go to private schools, or who receive instruction at 
their fathers' houses, or who have perhaps already entered the lower 
classes of the gymnasia, the general state of things appears suffi- 
ciently gratifying. What a contrast will this exhibit to the condition 
of education in most of the States in this Union. 

In Prussia, Austria, and Germany, scarcely a child grows up un- 
educated. In most of the States of this nation, thousands and tens 
of thousands are destitute of education, as will presently be shown. 
Sweden (says Lord Brougham) is, perhaps, the best educated coun- 
try in the world ; it is difficult to find there one person in a thousand 
who cannot read and write. 

Even Russia, semi-barbarous as we are prone to regard her, is 
improving in a liberal way her system of education. The St. Peters- 
burg Journal states that 160,105 children of soldiers and recruits 
were educated at the expense of the Croivn^ in the year 1832. 
During an interval of eight years, 4,343 such children were brought 
up as clerks in offices, 2,308 as assistant surgeons, 452 as land sur- 
veyors, 586 as shipwrights, and 120 as musicians. 

If we contrast the condition of education in most of the nations of 
Europe with the limited systems in this nation, we will be mortified 
to find how far we are behind the former. It is true that Massachu- 
setts, Connecticut, New York, Ohio, and one or two other States, 
have adopted a liberal and general system of public schools ; but even 
in those States there is much room for improvement ; and although 
in Connecticut one third of the population of 275,000 attend the 
free schools, still the foundations of education should be extended 
deeper and wider. In most of the other States the system of educa- 
tion is most culpably deficient. Although the system of education 
has beenfgreatly improved since, yet, by a report made seven or eight 
years ago, it was stated that 

" This country contains more than four millions of children, who ought to be under the 
influence of common schools. But by a recent estimate it appears that more than a million 
of children are growing up in the United States in ignorance, and without the means of 
education,- of these, 250,000 are said to be in Pennsylvania. An estimate made in 1828 
showed that, of the children of New Jersey, 11,743 were entirely destitute of instruction, 
and 15,000 adults unable to read." 

Between the statement which I have read, and the following 
extract from Governor Wolf's message afterwards, there will be 
discovered a discrepancy; but either statement presents a deplorable 
state of education at the time. Governor Wolf says that, 



53 

" According to the last census, we have in Pennsylvania 581,180 children under fifteen, 
and l-i&jOS? betvsreen the age of fifteen and twrenty, forming an aggregate of 730,269 
juvenile persons of both sexes under the age of twenty years, most of them requiring more 
or less instruction. And yet, with this numerous youthful population growing up around us, 
who in a few years are to be our rulers and our lawgivers,' the defenders of our country and 
the pillars of the State, and upon whose education will depend, in a great measure, the 
preservation of our liberties and the safety of the republic, we have neither schools establish- 
ed for their instruction, nor provision made by law for establishing them, as enjoined by the 
constitution. I have no means of ascertaining, but am inclined to the opinion that 
80,000 are entirely uninstructed. " 

Pennsylvania has adopted, within the last three or four years, a 
more liberal system of public instruction ; and, in that brief period, 
the benefits have been beyond all anticipation. And never vv^as a 
system more zealously opposed. During the conflict arising ouC of 
that measure, it was my fortune to travel through the greater part 
of that State, and I discovered that those portions of the State most 
uninformed, and requiring in the greatest degree education, were 
most zealously hostile to it. They enlarged upon tariffs and taxes, 
and were vehement in denunciations. 

It was then that the truth of the remark of Dr. Chalmers forced 
conviction upon my mind, "that the inappetence of a people for 
education is in the exact ratio of its ignorance." What has been 
the effect of that system ^ From the report of Mr. Burrowes, super- 
intendent of education to the Legislature of Pennsylvania, February 
7, 1838, we find " that the whole number of scholars taught during 
the year, in the districts which reported, was 182,355." " The whole 
number of young persons, between five and fifteen years of age, in 
the districts that reported, is supposed to be about 200,000. 

"•So far as the returns have been received, the whole number taught 
in schools of all kinds, in the same districts, before the adoption of 
the system, was 80,000." 

Then it appears that, in the short interval from the adoption of 
the measure to the present time, more than 100,000 children are 
now receiving the advantages of education, who otherwise would 
have grown up in degrading ignorance. 

The measure of public education, which was at the moment of its 
adoption so unpopular, is now in those very regions hailed as the 
greatest public blessing. Which proves conclusively another fact : 
that, whatever may be the prejudices against a liberal system of 
education, when once adopted, he who Avould then oppose it would 
make himself infinitely more unpopular in the most illiterate commu- 
nity than was the original supporter. 

As in State Governments, so in the National, prejudices may be 
created, timid apprehensions may alarm, worse considerations than 
either, may influence individuals in opposing a measure to appropri- 
ate the public domain for the diffusion of education among the States ; 
but when such a policy shall, and I believe and hope will, prevail, the 
individual, if it should be possible that one such could be found in 
Congress, who would attempt to divert that fund, once set apart, from 
its munificent purpose, would be regarded as a more barbarous hea- 
then than he who would in other times have wildly rushed into the 



54 

sanctuary of the solemn temples of the gods, and extinguished their 
vestal lights. 

By the report of the committee appointed by the Legislature of 
Georgia, " of 83,000 children who ought to be in school, but 25,000 
have the advantage of any education whatever," 

Thus Georgia, the mother of two powerful and wealthy States, 
presents the sad picture of allowing 58,000 children to grow up 
within her limits in the most cruel and profound ignorance ; a 
State which reserved in her articles of cession her just proportion 
of the public lands. When was the voice of that State heard in 
this hall in favor of a distributive share of the public lands for edu- 
cation, which she so much requires ? 

I have seen no report from North Carolina, and I deeply regret 
that there is not a feeling of reciprocity between the States and the 
National Government, to furnish each with all of their reports and 
public proceedings ; for, alike in State or the National Legislature, 
its members are embarrassed in their public deliberations, from a 
want of access to useful reports. But North Carolina must greatly 
require an improved system of education ; for you will find in the 
journals of this House, in the evidence in relation to the contested 
election from North Carolina in the 1st session of the 22d Congress, 
that, out of one hundred and eleven voters who gave testimony, 
twenty-eight had to make their marks ; in other words, one third 
could not write their names. And her voice has not been heard in 
this hall or the other, in claiming a portion of the public domain for 
the education of her ignorant children. A State which is the parent 
of Tennessee ; a State in which Sir Walter Raleigh's emigrants 
first settled ; a State which has the honor of standing proudly the 
first to declare, by a political State act, (to say nothing about her 
Mecklenburg convention,) her determination to be separated from 
the mother country ; for, on the 12th April, 1776, the Congress of 
North Carolina " empowered their delegates to declare independ- 
ence."* 

If we were to form a general opinion of the condition of educa- 
tion in other States, from like circumstances, we would conclude 
that Kentucky is but slightly in advance of North Carolina. 

You will find recorded, in your journal of proceedings, a case 
almost as remarkable, in the first session of the succeeding Congress. 
That in the evidence given in the contested election of Moore and 
Letcher, of one hundred and twelve names of witnesses which I 



• In a work written by Mr. J. Seawell Jones, of North Carolina, which entitles him to 
the admiration of the country and the lasting gratitude of his State, he has abundantly 
proven that his native State is entitled to the honor to which I have alluded ; and since his 
excellent work has been published — his "Defence of the Revolutionary History of the State 
of North Carolina" — the distinction which he has claimed for her is fully corroborated, if 
additional proof than that which he adduces were necessary, by the researches of Mr. M. 
St. Clair Clarke, at Albany, and at other places, whilst compiling the American State 
Papers. 



55 

counted, sixteen were marksmen, or about one fifth, who could not 
write their names. 

By the last report of the superintendent of common schools, it ap- 
pears that in the year 1836, in the districts of New York from which 
reports had been receiv^ed, there were 524,188 instructed, and that 
the number of children residing in those districts, over five years 
old and under sixteen, was 563,882 ; so of that number 39,694 did 
not attend common schools. 

I pass over other States, and will say that my own State is far 
behind the age in mental improvement, from an absence of a more 
general system of public education. In the congressional district 
which I represent there is scarcely a single school in which a poor 
man who has not the means to incur the expense can have his chil- 
dren educated. And what, Mr. Speaker, can be more agonizing to 
a sensitive mind, when the physical energies are paralyzed by af- 
fliction, than the reflection of such a parent, that the children which 
he is to leave behind him are to grow up in ignorance, and to be 
made the prey of every vice, and to be allured to ruin by every 
temptation. 

How different must be the decline of one, though poor and pros- 
trated, when he can find his pillow softened by the belief that, though 
disease and poverty may harass him, his mind can still fondly linger 
on the consoling reflection that his offspring, if left penniless, will 
still be educated ; and how cheering the hope that their fate may be 
different ; and that, when the fond parent is no more, his children, by 
public instruction, by industry, and the force of genius, in a country 
where all the avenues of enterprise and promotion are thrown wide 
open to character and to talents, may be useful to society and adorn 
his country, and rescue from the grave the name of their father, and 
extend it with their own through a grateful nation. By the census of 
1830, there were in the United States, between the ages of five and 
fifteen years, 2,845,037 while children ; the number now is more 
than 3,000,000, all of whom should receive a moral and useful edu- 
cation. Lord Brougham asserts that "it is not enough to say that 
a child can learn a great deal before the age ©f six years ; the truth 
is that he can learn, and does learn, a great deal before the age of 
six years ; the truth is that he can learn, and does learn, a great deal 
more before that age than all that he learns or can learn in all after 
life." I do not feel qualified to discuss the truth or error of this prop- 
osition ; but will assert that, if it is true, every one who values either 
the institutions of his country or the happiness of the people must 
feel a strong solicitude in having schools established which will give 
instruction and proper moral direction to the youthful mind. There 
is no truth more fully established in morals, than that a nation or 
people are vicious in proportion to their ignorance. In illustration 
of the position, I will refer to a passage in Lord Brougham's speech 
on education, in the House of Lords, some three years ago. He 
states, that of " 700 persons who were put on their trials, in the 
winters of 1830 and 1831, charged with rioting and arson, and of 



56 

those 700, only 150 could read and write ; all the rest were marks- 
men. Of the number of boys committed to Newgate, during three 
years, two thirds could neither read nor write. 

" At the refuge for the destitute it is still worse ; for, from an ex- 
amination there made, it appears that the number of children receiv- 
ed who can read with tolerable facility is in the proportion of only 
one in every thirty or thirty-five." 

But, Mr. Chairman, I feel forced to hurry through this portion of 
the subject, and the reflections which naturally arise from it. I am 
quite sure that I have fatigued the House as well as myself. 

The effect of education upon a nation is not alone in the mental 
and moral exaltation of its people, but the consequence is in equal 
ratio upon its physical energies and the increasing development of 
its resources. To sustain the latter position I will read an ex- 
tract from the very able and most valuable work of Mr. E. C. Wines, 
on the subject of " Popular Education." He says that " the intel- 
lect of this people is not cultivated to one fourth — scarcely, perhaps, 
to one eighth — the extent that it would be by the adoption of a wise 
system of universal education. And who can calculate the results? 
What imagination can set limits to the pecuniary advantages that 
would accrue to the country, if useful inventions and discoveries 
were multiplied fourfold ;" that, " In illustration of this point, Pres- 
ident Young has made a comparison, founded upon the statistics of 
Baron Dupin, between the commercial and manufacturing condition 
of England and France. From this calculation it appears that the 
muscular force employed in commerce and manufactures in these 
two countries is about equal, being in each equivalent, in round 
numbers, to the power of six millio?is of men. Thus, if the pro- 
ductive enterprise of the two countries depended solely upon the 
animate power employed, France ought to be as great a commer- 
cial and manufacturing country as England. But the English, by 
means of machinery, have increased their force to a power equal to 
that of twenty five millions of men, while the French have only 
raised theirs to that of eleven millions. England, then, owing to 
her superiority in discovering and inventing, has more than quadru- 
pled her power of men and horses. France, on the other hand, has 
not quite doubled hers. Is it," the learned professor then per- 
tinently inquires, "is it now any wonder that these islanders, with 
a narrower territory, smaller population, and less genial climate, 
should immensely outstrip their less intelligent and ingenious neigh- 
bor ? And can we conceive a stronger proof of the actual pecuniary 
gain that accrues to a nation, from cultivating the intellect of her sons, 
than is furnished from such a fact?" How much does England gain 
by her superiority over France from this fact? The actual commer- 
cial and manufacturing power of the latter country is only two fifths 
of that of the former. The present annual value of the cotton 
manufacture of Great Britain, according to the Encyclopoedia Bri- 
tannica, is estimated to be about thirty-five millions of pounds ster- 
ling. Three fifths of that sum, or more than twenty millions of 



57 

pounds, is England's clear gain over her less skilful rival — an 
amount more than three times as great as the ivhole present annual 
revenue of the United States; and for this vast and ever-increasing 
tide of prosperity England is clearly indebted to popular education, 
which is the parent of intelligence, and the ultimate cause of all 
those improvements in the cotton manufacture by which these ama- 
zing results have been secured. 

Atone time England imported her cotton fabrics from India. By 
the invention of machinery she now imports the raw material, sends 
it back seven thousand miles, manufactured, ibr sale in a country 
where the hand-loom is still used. By Middieton's genius London 
is saved annually about eight millions of dollars in the facilities of 
furnishing water for that city. What amount of labor has been 
saved by Whittemore's card-making machine? Whitney's invention 
of the cotton gin has more than doubled the value of every acre of 
cotton land in the South. And Fulton created a miracle by his 
steam invention, which has propelled the past generation more than 
two centuries ahead of their otherwise destination. It is beyond 
the estimate of human calculation to compute the resources and 
power of this nation, if education were universally diffused, so as to 
bring its influence to bear upon their full development. But the 
limited statements which I have given show how deplorable is the 
condition of education in most of the States; how many who cannot 
even read or write. The Emperor of Austria has issued an edict 
preventing those from marrying who cannot read or write. The 
purpose is good ; yet in this country it would be regarded as cruel. 
By the constitution of Peru, no one will be allowed the privileges 
of citizenship after 1840 who cannot read and write. With all our 
boasted intelligence, such a law would create in this nation a civil 
revolution. 

VV^hat lover of bis country would not hope that the day was but 
shortly distant when this nation would present a spectacle worthy 
of its destination, when every citizen should enjoy the benefit of a 
generous education. And 1 would speed, with Wordsworth, 

" The coming of that glorious time 
When, prizing knowledge as her noblest wealth 
And best protection, this imperial realm, 
While she exacts allegiance, shall admit 
An obligation, on her part, to teach 
Them who are born to serve her and obey ; 
Binding herself hy statute to secure. 
For all the children whom her soil inainiainS', 
The rudimenta of letters ; and to inform 
The mind with moral and religious truth." 

Mr. Speaker, I am fully conscious that I have occupied the time 
of the House to an unusual extent. I am fully convinced that other 
and distinguished members will exert their powerful talents in sup- 
port of the measure. 1 hope that Virginia will lift up its able and 
strong voice in support of the resolutions which 1 have had the honor 
of introducing. I do anxiously hope that that State will never be 
5 



58 

silent, until the letter and spirit of its articles of cession are complied 
with ; that it will not be contented with its great State University^ 
but will press education in every region of that noble State. State 
colleges and State acadamies furnish the best education to their pu- 
pils ; but it is the affluent alone, who can send their children to those 
institutions. It is there that education, like the Lapland sun, gilds 
with its rays the edifice on the eminence, but they reach not the cot- 
tage beneath the hill. 

if virtue and intelligence are the true and lasting foundations of a 
free government, how imperative is the duty which rests upon those 
intrusted with the power of legislation to adopt a general system of 
public education. Whilst it improves the moral virtues, and exalts 
the head and the heart, it would do more than the avenues of inter- 
communication to knit together the Union of these growing and pow- 
erful States, and would unite them in amity and good feeling like 
a garland of flowers. 

Opposition to the proposition will be made, but I hope it will not 
be insurmountable. Every liberal plan of ameliorating the condition 
of those who most require it will have to encounter prejudices. And 
on this point I will read, as applicable to ray views, an extract from 
James on Education : 

" The first opposition will proceed from a spirit which the necessities of the times origi- 
nally generated, and which, by the outcry of short-sighted men, and the declamation of 
interested and ambitious men, has been carried to a pitiful and lamentable excess. I mean 
the spirit of petty economies, or the sacrifice of great and certain advantages to small but 
immediate savings. " 

In conclusion, 1 will say, if the members in this House should re- 
fuse to support a measure calculated tn give their States a distribu- 
tive proportion of the public lands for the promotion of education, 
I will renew the proposi'^on, as long as I may be allowed a seat in 
Congress, in another form. I will insist upon the right of my own 
State to her just proportion, and will never tire in urging it until its 
final success. If justice should sometimes be slow, it is generally 
triumphant in the end. 

But I hope that the members from the old States, and the liberal 
from the new, will take a firm ground, and take it quickly, in favor 
of this measure ; that they will not let another census and a reap- 
portionment of representation be taken until this question shall be 
carried. They have the power to do their States justice, if they 
have the will, and it is time for the old and devoted States to 

"Begin, be bold, and venture to be wise. 
Those who defer this Avork from day to day. 
Do on a river's bank expecting stand. 
Till the whole stream which pass them shall be dry, 
Which runs, and as it runs forever will run on." 



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